Cheering
by PC20XX
Summary: Meet Saidy, a timid shadow flower that likes to make others happy. But when friends and foes give her troublesome times, will Saidy keep on cheering in a world full of fighting?
1. For a Friend

Disclaimer: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 belongs to PopCap.

Author's Note: Welcome to my story! Sometimes when I play GW2 as the sunflower and revive a teammate, I gesture the "Happy" taunt and get a gesture back. Other times, I'd find Zombies idling around doing other things and got taunts from them. Thus, came this story. With that all said, I hope you enjoy the read.

* * *

 _Why would plants join and stay with the Zombies?_

A light-blue faced shadow flower sporting a mask thought this as she gazed up at the night sky.

 _Maybe they were tricked and trapped?_

She kept thinking to herself the many answers to her unanswered question with a look of wonder.

"Br-ainz!"

The shadow flower looked down from her stargazing and saw an All-Star zombie in basketball clothes dribble a ball slowly before throwing it towards the basket of the court he was in. Unfortunately, he had thrown it too hard to where it flew over the backboard and landed on the grass.

"Ah... Brainz..."

The nocturnal sunflower laughed at the poor shot. Normally, she'd be on her way back to her home when a zombie showed up, but for tonight, she decided to spectate this player.

 _It must be pretty hard playing that game as a Zombie._ She thought as she stretched her roots and arms.

Sure enough, she saw the All-Star miss the next eight shots from all sorts of different angles. On the ninth one, he was shooting from the three-point range to the right of the rim and looking almost directly at her.

 _Is he looking at me?_

When the ball missed the basket, it bounced once on the cement before starting to roll straight to her direction. The All-Star grumbled before sprint-dashing to the ball.

 _...!_

The shadow flower panicked and was about to turn to run when she saw the zombie in the blue and white jersey stop his dash.

"Ey!" the All-Star greeted with a wave to the plant. Then he pointed at the ball and motioned it towards him.

"Huh?" the blue sunflower asked in confusion. "Me?" She went to the basketball close by to her and picked it up with her arms.

 _He's not going to chase me?_

With both arms and with all her strength, she threw the ball right into the zombie's hands.

"Whoo! Nyuh-nyuh!" the shadow flower smiled and cheered at her first ever throw being successful.

The undead athletic laughed at the sight and flashed a thumbs-up to her.

"Yeah-ha-ha." The basketball player turned around and was about to run back to the court, but the shadow flower grew curious.

"Hey. What's your name?" To this, the zombie turned around and had a look of surprise.

"Ed. Sunflower?"

"My name's Saidy. Nice to meet you, Ed!" the blue sunflower introduced herself excitedly with a wave.

"Brainz... Nice meet you, too, Shady." the undead person obviously struggled a lot more than she did-and with her name mispronounced on top of it.

"H-Hey, it's Saidy, not Shady." the shadow flower stomped one of her roots and folded her arms.

"Sorry, Shady." Ed apologized with effort.

"Whatever..." The nocturnal flower shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Are you going to keep practicing?"

"Yeah. Trying make one tonight."

That made Saidy realize just how hard it was for him. He had only been playing for ten minutes and missed every shot. She had laughed at first, but now she knew he was trying.

"O-Okay." Then a thought came across her mind. _"I always cheered for the plants when they were feeling down. Why not him, too?"_ Saidy looked up at the night sky briefly before focusing back on her zombie companion. "Hey, Ed, I'll be right back. Stay here, okay?"

"Buh-bye!" Ed waved at her before dashing back to the basketball court to keep on trying.

With that, Saidy took off running to her home. Along the way of her nightly run on the streets, though, her emotions are interrupted by her own doubts.

 _Am I really going to do this? If other plants find out I was cheerleading for him, they might think I'm on their side and kick me out of Suburbia._

After two minutes of dashing, the shadow flower approached the door to a light blue-colored home. The door was slightly creaked open already because in the past she always had trouble turning the doorknob. Saidy pushed the door open with her right arm and entered the home.

"Hah..." Saidy sighed with a mix of worry and happiness.

Inside the blue room around her were a few hung-up rally flags in all sorts of colors. There was a silver medal for 2nd place in a plaque under the small window. There was also a picture of her sporting a pink derby hat, purple glasses, and pink foam fingers smiling on the wall next to the plaque.

 _2nd place... That other sunflower messed up twice and still won... So stupid..._

When thinking about her cheerleading memories, she decided that she'd do it-she'd cheer for the undead basketball player. It was her decision and not anyone else's.

 _Okay._

With her mind set, the shadow flower went to the closet. She reached up, took off the black mask she sported and grabbed a pair of wooden frames spray-painted silver to put on.

She then opened a drawer nearby that had pom-poms in almost every color combination possible.

"Mm-mm." Saidy shook her head in denial and opened another drawer to find a pair of golden pom-poms. She placed them on the end of her arms and nodded in approval. "Ah-ha."

After getting herself set up, she fidgeted with her front door to make it appear closed and ran off towards the park under the night sky.

 _Hm..._

Saidy slowed down her run when one after another, memories came to mind-memories that had always hurt her feelings.

* * *

"Wow. A shadow flower... She's going to be one of those super sunflowers that's going to help us win the fight against the Zombies." an ice peashooter once said.

 _Everyone always expected something great from me._

"Wha-What was that?! That was so cool! You'll beat up lots of Zombies with that!" a fire flower once exclaimed with surprise and joy at seeing Saidy use a Solar Flare beam to destroy ten tackle dummies in ten seconds.

 _To use that on the Zombies...?_ _And what if I missed and hit a plant by accident...?_

The one usage of that great power had scared her from using it again.

"You're going to be a cheerleader? Why? You'd do much better joining the fight for Suburbia." a power chomper one time told her when she had only just grabbed the sign-up sheet.

 _They tell me all these things like they know me._

* * *

Before another bad memory could return, Saidy saw the basketball court in sight. In it was the athletic zombie dribbling the basketball at a slow pace.

 _Well, here I go. He'd better not laugh._

She entered the court and stood on the outside of the huge white rectangle. Ed continued his slow dribbling before grabbing the ball in front of him with both hands folded inward and launching it up like a catapult. The shot had a great angle, but he clearly threw the ball with too much power and had it land onto the grass some twenty feet away.

"Ah... Br-ainz." He ran to get the ball and ran back to the court. But along his way back…

"Na-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. O-whoo!" The shadow flower smiled, stuck her right arm out, and shaked it as she was turning to the right. Then she put that arm down, stuck out her left, and shook it as she was turning to the left. What she had done was like someone in a garden having fun with a watering can.

The All-Star in basketball apparel merely stood there. Then he smiled and started laughing in a deep voice.

"Daw. Huh-huh-huh-huh." Even though she didn't show it, this made Saidy upset. And she would've stayed that way if not for what he said next. "Thanks, Shady. You da best."

Hearing that made Saidy beam a bright smile.

"Hmhm. Want to be friends, Ed?"

"Yeah-ha-ha." the zombie agreed right away and flashed a thumbs-up.

Out of nowhere, the two's attention turns to a gate.

"Alright, let's break it down!"

The loud voice came from a boom box that was being carried by another All-Star in basketball clothes, only in black and red. And the undead athlete wasn't alone as he was accompanied by an armed imp with an Elvis hairdo wearing a leather jacket, a fully equipped foot soldier wearing a pair of black sunglasses, and a computer scientist carrying many healing stations in place of his code corrupter weapon.

One zombie was enough to make Saidy scared. Four was the most she's ever come across and she was already quivering in her roots.

"Shady, go home." It was disappointing that she wouldn't see him score his first shot of the night, but she nodded in agreement and took off running.

"You ready to get creamed again, Ed?" Saidy heard the boom box exclaim this and made her feel confused, yet awful.

 _He's been practicing to try to beat that other zombie._

Part of her wanted to stay and cheer for him, but the imp had his blasters, the soldier had everything he was known to have, and the scientist had lots of healing stations. If she did something wrong, it'd be over.

 _Nyuh!_

She entered her home and eased the door to where it looked closed. She then rooted herself into the dirt ground where a few floorboards were missing and looked up at the night sky through the small window.

 _Still though..._

Saidy closed her eyes and smiled as she remembered that short little moment after she cheered for Ed.

 _That made me so happy. Maybe tomorrow night we'll..._

And the shadow flower slept soundly as her head faced the starry sky.


	2. For a Neighbor

Disclaimer: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 belongs to PopCap.

* * *

Last night, Saidy, the cheerful shadow flower made friends with a basketball All-Star zombie. Shortly after she did, however, a group of four other zombies showed up and forced her to leave out of fear. Tonight, she planned on revisiting the basketball court to see how her new friend did against the other basketball All-Star. But sometimes plans change.

* * *

"Ah. Another good sleep," the shadow flower yawned as she loosened her roots from the patch of dirt in the floor. It was then she noticed that she still had her cheer gear still on.

 _Well, I am cheering later anyways._

After making sure the door to her home appeared closed, Saidy dashed into the sunset-lit streets of Suburbia. During this time, most plants would either be getting ready for sleep or a late-night guard shift. Because of that, the nocturnal sunflower hardly ever talked to plants when she'd be awake.

"Haha! Found you!" A sunflower exclaimed as she pointed at the shadow flower passing by her.

"Hup?" Saidy wondered in confusion, but stopped and greeted the stranger with a smile and a wave. She saw that the sunflower had a coiled pink yo-yo attached to her left arm and sported a pink headband in between some of her upper yellow petals. The shadow flower recognized the voice from somewhere in her memories, but she wasn't sure where. "You're looking for me?"

"Yeah. You're the one that should've won the Pep Competition."

"Wha-?" Saidy stuttered as she formed a bashful smile. For the past month, she had felt that the award should have been hers; hearing it come from someone else made her feel very content she wasn't alone anymore. "Thanks. I'm guessing you saw what happened then…"

"I did," the sunflower said and smiled at the reaction the shadow flower had. "My name is Capri. What's yours?"

"I'm Saidy. It's nice to meet you, Capri." The sky-blue faced flower greeted and shined a neon blue heal beam connecting to Capri's empty right arm. She saw the sunflower awe at her heal beam. Though at the same time, Saidy felt she heard that name somewhere, but struggled to figure out where.

"How did you get your heal beam to be a beautiful color?"

Saidy merely laughed.

"All the other sunflowers at my school wonder the same thing, but the best answer I can come up with is that I like this color." The nocturnal flower replied and stopped her healing "handshake". "Anyway, why were you looking for me, Capri?"

"Because I was wondering if we could be friends and maybe you could show me a little bit of how you cheer." Now Saidy understood where her gut feeling was coming from—this sunflower must have been a cheerleader that competed against her. That's why she had a feeling she heard the voice and the name before.

"Then let's be friends!" Saidy exclaimed happily as she gave a short hop. "And I don't mind showing you how I cheer, but if you made it as far as that competition, there's not that much left for me to show you."

"I'm sure there is, but let's not worry about that now. Are you going somewhere?" Capri asked as she played with her pink yo-yo and managed to recoil it perfectly.

"Um… Sort of. I was going to look for a friend myself. Haha." Even though they just became friends, Saidy wasn't sure if she should tell Capri about her Zombie friend from yesterday.

"You are? Can I come with? I just moved to this part of the neighborhood so I'm kind of new here."

"Sure. But it's almost nighttime—are you going to be okay when there's a chance Zombies might be out?"

Truth be told, she didn't know what answer she would get out of that question.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'm with my super new neighborhood friend, Saidy, and I'll follow her lead." The sunflower agreed with a tilt of her head.

 _I made a Zombie friend yesterday. Now I have a cheerleader friend… None of the cheerleaders at my school ever asked to be my friend or even wanted to do anything with me after we would be done with our routine._

"Then let's go to the park and hang out with my friend if he's there."

Thus, the two sunflowers—one a regular and the other a shadow—ventured towards the park that had multiple tennis courts within it and not the one with a basketball court.

 _But as much as I do want us to hang out together, those other four zombies could show up. Ed told me to go home right away when they showed up yesterday so they must be bad news._

The park with the tennis courts was only four minutes away, but Saidy had talked about local shops and gardens along the way that made the trip extend to ten minutes.

"I don't get it, Capri. How are you so good at that?" Saidy was referring to the yo-yoing Capri had been doing along the way.

"Just practicing. But it's a real pain if you mess up and get it all tangled, though. I can't ever get a grip on the string to fix it even if I try for a few hours." As she was explaining, Capri threw her arm up and launched her yo-yo away. Then she pulled it back with a little tug on the string and made the toy recoil back to her arm. "I've gone a few weeks without tangling it so I'm pretty happy."

While the sunflower mentioned this, Saidy wondered something else.

"Who helped you if you did get it tangled?"

When Saidy asked this, there was a long silence in the air before the yellow sunflower stopped her walk and sighed.

"It was a boy."

The shadow flower was about to apologize for bringing back bad memories, but she noticed a group of three plants go towards them and started getting her own bad memories brought back.

"Capri…"

"Shady, is that you?" the ice cactus of the group asked. He had a few golden chains tattooed around his neck, a pair of green hedge frames, and most notably, an ice goatee.

"Stop calling me that. It's Saidy."

"Why? Everyone calls you Shady, Shady." A fire chomper with a black head, blue hairdo, and flawless, golden teeth said.

"You were the ones that told everyone about that name!" the usually timid shadow flower burst out with anger.

"Rich, Gator, leave her alone. Let's just go mess up that zombie nerd walking around." The one that said this was a red-faced rock pea with a red punk hairdo, cash blinders on his eyes, and metal drills on his arms.

"Whatever, Vin. You always go soft on her even though she messed with you the most." Rich, the ice cactus, told the rock pea. When Capri looked at Saidy, she saw that she was staring down at the grass with that last detail. "Later, Shady."

"Bye…" the shadow flower muttered lowly as the trio left.

"Dang, Vin, why you gotta be a killjoy?"

"Seriously, Rich—"

When not able to hear the trio of plants anymore, Saidy looked at Capri and saw her appear disappointed.

"You know when I was looking for you, almost everyone I asked did know you by that name. It's stupid what bullies can do." Capri admitted to the shadow flower and continued when not hearing her respond. "That rock pea was a little nice, though. But was what that cactus said true?"

To this, the nocturnal sunflower gazed at the oncoming dark sky.

"Yeah."

The sunflower with the pink headband frowned. But then she smiled a bit and shined a yellow heal beam on Saidy.

"Let me heal your old wounds with my beam." This made the shadow flower look down and smile at her companion.

"Thanks, Capri."

The two went to a park table and sat on opposite sides. For a short while, the two took in the view of the sky turning from orange to purplish black. Then Capri broke the silence.

"Hey, Saidy."

"Hup?"

"Before those bozos showed up, remember I mentioned a boy helped me with my yo-yoing?"

"Yes. You looked sad after you said that." Sure enough, when the sunflower with black petals looked at her friend she saw that she was becoming unhappy.

"I think he became a Zombie."

"Aw…" Saidy hopped off her side of the table and sat next to Capri. "Did they sneak up on him alone?"

"No… He had some disease to where it makes whoever's affected shake uncontrollably. Just imagine the shock from those electric weapons zombies have, but having no idea when it'd hit."

"That's awful."

"Yeah. We had lots of fun together, but we also had bad days when he couldn't control his body. Then one day, he really couldn't stop shaking on the floor. I grabbed his hand and he grabbed mine. It lasted probably ten minutes before I felt his hard grip go soft. In that moment, I knew he was gone… My young caregiver and adopted little bro, Timothy Prix, was gone…"

"Nh…" Saidy mumbled lowly and shook her head in disappointment.

"I don't remember how long I cried for, but after some time, I noticed a zombie scientist had entered through the door. He had asked why a sunflower was crying and not being happy. Then he saw Tim's body and said something about trying to help. He had a lot of healing stations and placed four of them around his body. They sprayed that purple liquid for a few minutes before the scientist said that it wasn't working."

 _A zombie scientist with a lot of healing stations? It sounds like the one I saw yesterday._

"I was confused figuring out why he—a Zombie—was trying to help me—a Plant. I asked him, and he told me, 'Dr. Zomboss trying new plan.'"

 _What? A new plan? By helping plants?_

She must have had a look of disbelief because Capri smiled at Saidy.

"Exactly. I didn't believe it either. He told me that there were two things I could do. One was to let him eat my brother's brain while it was still fresh."

"As if!" Saidy exclaimed with a goofy smug of anger.

"I know, right?" Capri agreed with a roll of her eyes. "The other was to let him take my brother to Zomburbia to extract most of his brain. He said he'd try to move his memories to a computer chip and reattach it to what was left of his brain after he was made a Zombie. He said 'try' because it hadn't been done this way before."

"I'm not sure if that's good or bad."

"Yeah. That's one of the reasons I moved to this neighborhood. I want to find him or at least the computer scientist that was nice enough to try to give me a chance to see my brother alive again." The sunflower explained with a warm smile.

 _Aha! It must be the one I saw yesterday!_

Suddenly, Capri jumped out of her seat and shook her head worriedly.

"Ah! Those jerks said they'd mess up a zombie nerd walking around!"

 _Huh? Uh…_

The sunflower ran off to where she remembered the trio going towards. Saidy was right behind her, but now her worry grew as the purplish-black night sky loomed overhead.

 _If we help that computer scientist and those three see, there will be no going back-!_


	3. For a Mute

Disclaimer: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 belongs to PopCap.

Author's Note: I added a book cover to show what Saidy looks like in her cheer getup. If you've made it this far in reading through the two chapters beforehand, I hope you're enjoying the read. And if you've reviewed, thank you very much for reviewing!

* * *

Earlier, Saidy ventured out to look for her zombie friend, Ed. Along the way, she becomes friends with Capri, a sunflower cheerleader who had competed against Saidy before. Not wanting to risk her new neighbor having a problem with Ed and not wanting to desert a new friend, the shadow flower travelled alongside the sunflower to a different park. It was there where Saidy learned that Capri had her own strange, friendly experience with a zombie computer scientist, and it was there where the two met a trio of bothersome plants that happened to mention "messing up" a zombie nerd…

* * *

"Wow. A shadow flower. You're so cool." A young rock pea once said as he continued to lie down on the grass.

"Hmhm. I'm not that cool, but thanks." A young shadow flower replied with a warm laugh as she looked down on the injured peashooter she was healing. "My name is Saidy. Want to be friends?"

* * *

 _I hadn't even known that he was a bully. I just wanted to heal him because no other sunflower was doing it…_

Both Saidy and Capri were running through the streets of Suburbia to find a zombie computer scientist before a trio of other Plants would.

"Come on…" Capri mumbled as she pushed herself to move faster.

The two were about to dash past a playground when something called their attention.

"H-Hey, Shady!"

The two stopped their late-night run with Saidy bumping into Capri by accident.

"Sorry." The shadow flower apologized to her friend before looking at where the voice came from. Lying in the sandbox were the fire chomper and ice cactus from earlier. "Huh?"

Saidy went to the two plants and saw that they were covered in red, blue, and green-colored chemical solutions. Despite the troubles she had with them in the past, Saidy shined a neon blue heal beam to both of the injured plants immediately and looked down to the two.

Capri approached as well and shined a single heal beam on the fire chomper. It was then that they noticed the ice cactus was asleep.

"Agh… Knocked out from the pain…" the fire chomper grumbled as he shook his black head back and forth.

"Wha-What happened, Gator?" the nocturnal flower asked with worry at hearing the voice from the chomper. The chomper turned away from the dark healer when she asked that.

"We got messed up for vanquishing a zombie nerd." The moment he mentioned this, Capri stopped shining her heal beam and lowered her arms a bit. "Rich here sniped a few holes in his newspaper. And I burned it with my fire when he dropped it. He got super frustrated and went to take a bite of me, but Vin nailed his head off. Then this chemist came out and beat us up when he saw the newspaper zombie down."

This confused Capri so she asked a question.

"So the zombie nerd you guys were messing with was a newspaper zombie?"

"Yeah? Why?"

In the next moment, Capri stomped her front root with her leaf on top into the sand. She then kicked up the sand on her leaf up into the chomper's face.

"Bfh?!"

"Stop picking on others! Geez!"

Saidy was giggling when she saw her friend's reaction and was relieved that the zombie nerd they were after wasn't the computer scientist.

Still though, Saidy stopped shining a neon blue heal beam on Gator when hearing about the zombie who fell to bullying.

"Gh-ah…" the fire chomper muttered as he got up from the sandbox. Both Saidy and Capri saw the immense pain he was in so they each quickly recast a heal beam on him.

"What are you doing? You're hurt so stay down." Capri advised worriedly as she lightly shoved the fire chomper back down with her empty right arm.

"You-! Don't touch me!" the chomper fell backwards onto the sand within the sandbox. Capri frowned at the aggressive attitude towards her before looking down to her right arm for some reason.

"Uh…" the sunflower with the pink headband and yo-yo muttered as she stared at her arm. The three of them all saw that the end of her arm was covered in a red chemical solution. "Uh!"

"Shady, go help Vin. We're going to be stuck here for a while."

"Why can't you just wash it off?" the nocturnal flower asked anxiously.

"Flower girl, look at what that did to Rich!" The three of them all stared at the unmoving ice cactus.

"Uh…" Capri moaned as she sat down across from Gator and shook her right arm around wildly and repeatedly. "It hurts."

"But…"

"It didn't get into our roots so we'll be fine, Shady. Just go!"

And just like that, Saidy continued running through the nightly streets of Suburbia.

" _How do you get that stuff off without water?"_ the shadow flower thought to herself as she started noticing multi-colored blasts of the chemicals on the street she was on. She took great care in treading around the puddles so that none of her roots would accidentally absorb some of the hazardous chemicals. _"Wouldn't it be dangerous if it accidentally got on other Zombies?"_

 _And…_

When Saidy looked back up to see where she was going, she caught sight of someone in a lab coat towering over what looked like a multi-colored peashooter. This made her feel upset, but also scared.

 _Am I going to have to use my Solar Flare beam? Now would be a good time since he's not looking at me, but…_

The shadow flower stopped her advance about twelve feet away from the zombie.

"Hey!"

The undead zombie turned around at the yell and revealed himself to have a Rubik's cube-colored face. He had what looked like a green medical scanner over his eyes, a digital screen over his mouth that showed various pixelated green lines to represent his mouth's expressions, and a strange device on his forehead that featured a small purple LCD screen of Dr. Zomboss repetitively becoming angered. In his right hand was the feared chemical beaker blaster. However, what was different about his weapon from the usual lot was that it seemed to have three colorful tubes sticking out from the bottom.

"?" The scientist stared at the shadow flower opposite him with a flat line for his digital mouth.

"Please leave my friend alone. He's had enough."

The chemist tilted his head slightly at the same time a crooked "N" generated on his screen. The screen then showed a frown as he pointed to the left of the shadow flower with his blaster.

Saidy turned and confirmed Gator's tale—lying on the sidewalk was a disembodied newspaper zombie. It wasn't the first time the shadow flower had seen a Zombie vanquished, but be it Plant or Zombie, her reaction was the same in that it always made her unhappy.

"…"

When she turned back to the chemist watching her, she saw his digital mouth have a pixelated oval shape.

Then he started walking towards her.

 _Uh oh._

At ten feet, the chemist slapped the rightmost beaker of his blaster—which caused the weapon's triple barrel to spin around a few times before ending with an oven's ding sound.

 _I think he just reloaded his weapon._

At six feet, the scientist pulled out a purple rubber ball with a small, bright red button.

 _Um…_

At two feet, the zombie stopped his walk and concentrated on the shadow flower before him. The plant healer noticed that he still had the oval shape as his digital mouth.

Saidy was terrified at being so close to a Zombie. She was terrified of his weapon and she was terrified of what she thought was a grenade in his left hand.

"…"

For a dozen seconds, neither of them did anything besides stare at each other. Then the chemist raised his signature weapon and pointed it at the green stem of the shadow flower in the cheerleader getup. This time he had a long diagonal line as his digital expression.

Seeing this, Saidy went from being wide-eyed to being disappointed that she'd be vanquished. Her gaze shifted to the street below her as she slumped her head downwards.

 _I guess it's over for me…_

Only next thing she knew, her silver-colored wooden frames slipped out from in between her petals because of her slumping. The accessory landed on the street with a dull sound as both sunflower and scientist looked down to it.

"…"

* * *

"You're going to go to that cheerleading academy? Why? I think you're a great cheerleader already, Saidy." A rock pea once said with some sadness in his voice. The moment he said that, he got a playful tap on the back of his head from the dark sunflower next to him.

"I only know how to do four things!"

There was some silence between the two before the shadow flower embraced the peashooter with both of her arms and rubbed her silky soft black petals atop his rocky hard red head.

"But thanks, Vin."

* * *

When her memory ended Saidy noticed that the chemist had dropped both his chemical beaker blaster and the sticky explosive ball. He then bent down and picked up her silver frames.

The plant healer with a sky-blue face blinked once as her focus remained on the scientist holding her accessory.

He then did something with her glasses that she hadn't expected—he tried them on.

Although, the task wasn't very successful as the accessory was intended for sunflowers.

Saidy brought up her right arm with a pom-pom attached to cover her mouth from light laughter. Smiling after that, she put her arm down and shook her head left to right a few times.

"You'd need a big head to wear those."

The chemist nodded as a smile appeared on his digital mouth. With the accessory still in his hands, he flipped it around and proceeded to place the piece carefully between some of the shadow flower's upper petals. The plant closed her eyes just before he neared her in case something went wrong.

It didn't take long for the zombie scientist to place the silver wooden frames and it certainly didn't take long for Saidy to notice that the scientist was rubbing above her brow a lot because of how soft her petals probably were.

When finally feeling the top of her head free though, Saidy brought both of her arms up to her mouth. She then threw them both down and outward as she opened her eyes and smiled beautifully.

"Ta-da!"

At that moment, a pixelated green "X" flashed repeatedly on the chemist's digital mouth while his medical scanner showed a flat line and the LCD screen displaying Dr. Zomboss changed to a multi-colored test pattern.

Like a sack of potatoes, he fell over backwards in a jumbled mess.

Saidy laughed whole-heartedly at the fall of the zombie that had given her old companions trouble. She then thought back to what she was pondering about earlier.

 _It would be dangerous if this stuff got on other Zombies. Or even himself. Hmm…_

Trusting her intuition, the shadow flower nabbed the healing station that was hanging by the chemist's left pant leg and approached the colorful clumpy mess nearby that was the rock pea, Vin. Without delay, she set the zombie device near the peashooter and slapped down a button on top to activate the sprinkler.

"Hee-yah!"

Much to her joy, when the purple droplets of goo landed on the chemically-doused rock pea, the red, blue, and green liquids disappeared in a puff of colorful smoke.

" _Hooray!"_ the dark sunflower cheered and slapped the device off. Saidy then shined a pair of neon blue heal beams onto the slumbering hunk of rock.

"Vin. Hey, Vin." Within a few moments of rubbing the front edge of his large mouth with her left pom-pom, the rock pea with a red head sneezed. "Vin!"

"Huh?" the rocky peashooter mumbled as he stared up at the shadow flower. "Saidy? What are you doing here? There's a crazy chemist around here that trashed us!"

"Oh." The cheerleader sunflower tilted her head innocently and pointed to her right. "You mean him?"

The rock pea got up rather quickly and looked at where his companion was pointing at. Sure enough, the chemist was downed right there.

"You trashed him? How?!"

This reaction made the sunflower giggle and roll her eyes playfully.

"I wouldn't call it trashing." Saidy told Vin before tugging him along with the healing station in her other arm. "Come on. Let's help the others."

Thus, the two dashed towards the playground to help the other plants. When seeing Vin hyper run to the paradise for active kids and young plants, however, Saidy turned around, ran back, and looked down at the chemist.

"I'm going to borrow your healing station for a bit, but I'm going to the basketball court later tonight to cheer on my zombie friend, Ed. Maybe we can see each other there?"

When she mentioned this, the chemist's digital mouth changed from a flashing "X" to a smile.

"Hmhm. Bye!" the shadow flower exclaimed happily and waved her right arm a few times. She then ran towards the playground where the other four plants were at.

"Hey, Saidy, that's the first time I see you taunt a Zombie! You're finally one of us!" the rock pea shouted with surprise and excitement.

"Shut up, Vin." The cheerleader sunflower laughed and placed the healing station in the middle of the three injured plants. With superb relief, she gave a light sigh as she watched the chemical solutions on Capri, Rich, and Gator evaporate with the purple goo spraying out.

 _A Zombie that can't talk…_

She didn't show her sadness at the thought. She did show a smile at her next one though.

 _But that doesn't mean we can't get along._


	4. With a Traitor

Disclaimer: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 belongs to PopCap.

* * *

A short while ago, Saidy had tagged along Capri to find a zombie computer scientist before Vin, Rich, and Gator would. Or at least that's what they thought when the plant group mentioned "messing up" a zombie nerd—it turned out to be a newspaper zombie instead. However, the fall of the newspaper zombie got the attention of a mute chemist who had a modified beaker blaster that stunned plants persistently.

With the Plants around her in pain, Saidy confronted the elite zombie to find a way to help her companions. Despite having a clear chance to attack and time to run, the shadow flower stood her ground and survived a silent encounter on top of acquiring a zombie healing station that allowed her to help the four plants who had the chemicals on their bodies.

Now, forty minutes after she left her home, Saidy is content with having a cheerleader friend and being on better terms with Vin, Rich, and Gator.

But the night isn't over for her yet…

* * *

Once seeing all the Plants around her were free from the chemical hazard, Saidy pressed the button on the healing station to stop it from sprinkling out more purple goo.

"Thanks, Saidy," Capri appreciated with a smile, "I was worried it wouldn't ever come off."

"You're welcome!"

The shadow flower then looked at the ice cactus that continued to snooze soundlessly.

"Wake up, lazy!" the fire chomper bumped into the side of the ice cactus and made him shake awake.

"Huh! What?" Rich hollered and took a gander at where he was. "Oh. The gang's all here. Good stuff."

"Hey, Capri, was it? Want to join our gang of bad molasses, 'The Vindicators'?" Gator asked the sunflower with the pink headband and surprised her.

"You'd accept a cheerleader sunflower like me?"

"It don't matter who you are or where you're from, if you back us up, we'll make sure you stay up. Shay—" the fire chomper explained and cut himself off when getting a stern look from Vin. "Saidy here used to be with us."

"Really?" Capri questioned as she glanced wondrously at the shadow flower.

"Yeah. Really-really." Saidy wanted to cover her face when seeing the unbelieving expression on her neighbor. "I came up with the group name when we were younger: Vin from Vincent. Dic for Richard. Ator from Gator."

The shadow flower paused for a moment.

"And I was known as Shady. Together, we were 'Shady Vindicators', a group that hung out in all sorts of places to try to recruit Plants to join our school, Greenleaf Sequoias."

The moment Saidy mentioned her former school's name, Capri developed a weirdly shocked face.

"Greenleaf Sequoias? I thought you were from Annual Academy?"

"Psh!" Rich cut in and threw a few spiky punches at the air in front of him. "Our school's name sounds way more awesome."

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh." Gator agreed with three root and leaf claps as well as a few nods.

The group's attention all turned to the shadow flower who laughed at both comment and gesture.

"Yeah. I went to Annual Academy. Before that, it was Greenleaf Sequoias." Saidy told the four around her.

" _But before that, it was Super Sprouts."_

The five all looked up at the night sky and let several seconds fly by.

"Hey, we should get going. I don't know how far you live, but you're welcome to crash at one of our places, Supa Capri." The ice cactus said with some grogginess in his voice.

"Really? I was considering joining your gang and you're already giving me an annoying nickname?" the yellow sunflower holding the pink yo-yo asked with disappointment.

"Sorry," Rich apologized sharply and surprised everyone.

"And sorry, Saidy, it's really hard to not call you Shady, but if it'll make you happy, want to join our group again if we stop?" Once again, the four were surprised by Rich's behavior.

"Um… If Capri joins, I'll join."

"And if Saidy doesn't join, I won't join."

It looked like this boggled the minds of those that were in the gang already.

"Then does this mean you're both in or out?" the rock pea asked in wonder.

* * *

The day after the Pep Competition Saidy didn't want to return to her academy. She already knew what to expect after getting second place.

"Saidy," a slightly taller than normal sunflower with black eyeglasses on called out as she approached the student in question. "You realize that our academy took pride in having sunflowers come out undefeated in that competition?"

"Yes." The shadow flower replied and kept focus on the principal's face even though she struggled tremendously not to look away and cry. "I was told that many times."

"Good. No excuses." The business-like sunflower gave a small smile for once before folding her arms. "Then I'm sure you know the consequence of failing to uphold that expectation."

"Yes," the Plant with black petals agreed as she felt her tears rising. "I can't come back to this school."

There was silence after she said this. Then, the principal pulled out what looked like a white paper filled with grids, words, signatures, and large red letters. Most of the large red letters appeared to be "A's", but there were also plenty of empty grids where red letters were supposed to go as well.

 _My cheerleading transcript…_

"That bit is true, but…"

The older sunflower then held the top portion of the paper with both her arms.

"Ms. Floria…?" Saidy squeaked out so lowly that it startled even the principal who had a glum expression.

But it didn't stop her.

And with the worst sound in the world, the important paper was torn into two.

Saidy blinked once and had her eyes instantly flooded with watery tears. She then ran out of the academy without looking back.

* * *

Using her split-second of an awful memory, Saidy had one question to ask before making her decision.

"Do you still think I'm a good cheerleader, Vin?" Saidy questioned with a soft voice.

Gator chuckled when she asked that.

"Here we go…"

"Geez, Saidy, it's almost like you think I'm the only Plant who thinks you are." Vincent responded and looked at the sand in embarrassment. "Yes. Not just because we want you in our group, but because you've always made me happy when you do it ever since that first time in that Plant daycare."

"And just like before, she teased him yet again." Rich told the fire chomper while shaking his left arm back and forth.

"Uh-huh."

Despite the two's comments though, the shadow flower gave a kind smile.

"Thanks. I'll rejoin."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Saidy was lying down on the grass in the park where the basketball court was at. Her former group having apologized for their old behavior since she helped them with their chemical trouble, she felt nothing short of sweet sensations.

"Why didn't you vanquish me when we were staring each other down?"

Lying down on the grass next to her was the chemist from earlier and he had the healing station once more since Saidy returned it.

When she got up to look at him, she saw that he had all his equipment in running order, but the small purple LCD screen that displayed Dr. Zomboss getting angry showed a digital green chalkboard.

In the next moment, the mute reached out with his right hand and made motions in the air. When he did that, the sunflower saw words being written into the small purple screen on his head.

"Let's see… 'I attack who attack first.' Oh." The shadow flower mused and nodded. "Hm… 'You're first Plant who not attack.'"

After hearing that, the chemist made a fist with his right hand before flicking his fingers outward. The moment he did that the digital green chalkboard with white writing emptied and became only green.

"That's a really cool gizmo!" the cheerleader exclaimed and saw the chemical scientist's digital mouth be a smile. "But yeah. I haven't shot at any zombies yet."

For a few seconds, the scientist did nothing and had an oval shape as his mouth. Then he started swishing and swashing in the air with his right index finger.

She didn't read the message aloud and frowned at what it said.

"I know we're in the middle of a war. And I know that a battle can happen anywhere at any time…"

The dark healer used her left arm to hold her right arm.

"My old dream of wanting to become a cheerleader for a Plant singer died a month ago," the shadow flower stopped looking at the purple screen and fell back onto the grass to stare up at the starlit night sky. "And it wasn't until I thought about it a little while ago that Plants can be just as bad as Zombies."

She paused for a moment and stared at the white moon in the sky.

"So, I thought that maybe Zombies can be just as good as Plants. That's why I took a chance yesterday and was really happy and excited about it."

The nocturnal sunflower reached up to the moon with her right arm.

"I was happy I could make even a Zombie happy through cheering."

For a few minutes, the both continued lying on the grass together. Then the chemist wrote in the air, stood up, and looked down onto Saidy.

"There was a surprise attack on a Zombie school just now and you have to go…"

Saidy got up with a quick leap and gazed at the scientist wondrously.

"Then GG."

It looked like the chemist was confused at that and made a quick motion in the air.

"What's GG? It means 'Good bye and good luck,' silly." The shadow flower smiled and laughed.

The chemist nodded and had a smile display on his digital mouth. Then with the flick of a white box and the push of a button, he disappeared in a puff of white smoke.

Just like that, the blue sunflower was alone in the park once again.

It had only been about an hour and a half since she woke up so the night was still young for her. The only reason she went to sleep early yesterday was because she had already been up since dawn to help a stuffy flower at an arts and crafts store.

With nothing better to do, she lied back down on the grass and resumed her gazing upon the night sky.

" _I can't believe Capri actually made Rich apologize. He hasn't apologized to anyone before."_

Saidy focused on a bright light blue dot in the sky.

" _When we first met, she said that I should've been the one to win. The more I think about that, the more I kind of don't care about the competition results anymore. I'm happy that we're cheerleading friends."_

She raised her right arm up and reached towards the bright light blue star in the sky.

" _But I wonder what she wanted to tell me earlier… It looked like she was super surprised when I mentioned my old school's name."_

The shadow flower then shook her arm and listened to the rustling of her pom-pom. She did it for a short while before deciding to put her arm back down to not tire herself out before her Zombie friend would arrive—if he'd arrive.

" _I hope he shows up. I want to see him score one shot and cheer for him."_

Not too long afterwards of staring, Saidy closed her eyes to concentrate on the wind passing through her leaves and petals.

It felt refreshing to be outside just as it felt revitalizing to feel a slight coldness on a hot summer day.

The only thing she really complained about being outside was her sleep schedule. Nighttime was amazing, but it was also dark and it happened to be the time the Zombies were active the most. Because of this, on some days it was no surprise to her if she slept for twenty hours straight.

" _Ngh…"_ Saidy mumbled and hoped it wouldn't be another one of those short nights. _"But then again…"_

She thought back to her events leading up until where she was currently. That was worth all those days she would sleep through for twenty hours.

" _I guess I can take a nap for now…"_

Within mere minutes, she felt herself lightly slipping away into her dreamland.

* * *

Next thing she knew, Saidy sensed something odd and woke up from her slumber.

"Huh? Wha-?" the nocturnal flower sat up, took off her right pom-pom, took off her silver frames, and rubbed her eyes with her right arm. When she reopened her eyes, she saw that there was a light blue and black gift box lying right at her roots.

" _Is this for me?"_

When she looked to her right, she saw that a zombie wearing a blue and white jersey with the number sixty-four was snoring rather loudly.

" _Ed!"_

And when she turned to her left, she saw a regular red rose wearing a blue and white sweat bandanna on her head snoozing with very light breaths. She noticed that in place of a cape, the rose had a very long blue and white, thick-striped scarf wrapped around her neck. Not only that, but the rose was using the scarf as a pillow.

" _Ms. Priscilla?!"_

On top of appearance, Saidy saw that there were two wooden drumsticks laying close to the rose's face.

" _Is she a rock star?"_

The shadow flower replaced her silver frames and replaced her right pom-pom. Then she stood up and looked down at the gift lying one foot away from her roots.

" _Is this really a gift for me? I want to find out, but I also don't want to wake them up."_

Her attention is directed to an entrance of the park, however, when hearing someone go through the metal gate.

" _Uh oh."_

Thinking quickly, she lied back down and closed her eyes. She was glad she did so because she sensed the new park visitor running right towards them.

"Ms. Pris! Ms. Pris!" a stranger with a squeaky voice called out. To Saidy, it sounded as if this was a small zombie—which meant it was probably an imp.

Saidy felt the zombie stop its dash close to the slumbering rose that was one of her former daycare teachers.

"Ms. Pris!" the being with a childish voice called out one last time.

There was a light yawn and then Saidy felt the grass to her left rustle as she thought the rose sat up to look at the zombie.

"What is it, Tim? Did you find Ms. Pris another lovely gift?"

" _Tim?"_ Saidy pondered to herself. It didn't take long for her to remember Capri's tale of her fallen brother.

Still, Saidy kept quiet.

"Heh-heh. Not today. Still looking." The zombie replied rather quickly as if he was jittery or convulsive. "Plant attack on Undeadly Resurrection failed. Hehe-haha. Vanquished seven out of twelve Plants with Z-11 Sups."

Hearing that detail scared Saidy.

"My!" the rose gasped in what appeared to be surprise. "I knew you had a gift for super shooting. Super good job, Timothy Prix!"

" _Ms. Priscilla really is on the Zombies' side… And Capri's brother is a zombie after all…"_

"Ms. Pris, is shadow flower friend?"

Now the attention was directed down to her.

"I don't know if she still thinks of me as a friend after what I've done, but like you now, she used to be a plant I took care of when Ms. Miridine needed help with the daycare."

Out of reflex upon hearing her other teacher's name, one of Saidy's roots twitched.

"Think shadow flower awake, Ms. Pris."

Given the opportunity, Saidy opened her eyes slowly. She then faked a yawn, sat up, and turned to her left.

Sure enough, the imp sporting an Elvis hairdo and wearing the leather jacket was looking right at her. Next to him was the rose sitting up on her vines.

"Rise and shine, my little moonshine." The rose told the shadow flower with a wave of her right "hand."

The moment she heard this, Saidy became teary-eyed and instantly remembered the times when she would oversleep in the daycare.

"Ms. Priscilla!"

Without a second thought, Saidy scooted to her teacher, gave her a hug, and rubbed her large head against Priscilla's smaller one.

"Ah, Saidy, I'm so happy to see you're still doing fine." Both broke apart from their embrace when Priscilla mentioned that. "And look at you, you look like a lovely cheer flower from the Plant Horticulture Channel."

"Cheer flower? Heh-heh. Big sis sunflower was one, too. Maybe Saidy met Seneca?"

The two plants turned to the imp. They both saw the same thing of him being excited.

" _Seneca…? Seneca is the sunflower who beat me at the Pep Competition…"_

"Don't worry about it, Saidy. He's been anxious about going to a faraway Plant neighborhood to find her…"

"Today, I met a cheerleader named Capri. But Capri did say you were her brother, Tim…"

"Wha-?" Priscilla stuttered in disbelief.

"Ah-ha! Heh-heh-heh-heh!" the convulsive imp exclaimed with spiffy energy. "Capri nickname Tim gave her; short for Seneca Prix."

Saidy appeared startled at what she just heard.

" _Seneca Prix is the sunflower who messed up twice and still won…"_

It looked as if Tim calmed down and started thinking about his sister.

" _And Capri told me right when we first met that I should have won that competition…"_

"Tim come up with plan to go to faraway Plant neighborhood. Give time, Saidy."

"Um… I don't think you need a plan." The shadow flower began. "Seneca moved to this neighborhood because she wanted to look for you, Tim."

"Haha…" the small zombie laughed before plopping backwards and looking up at the shadow flower. "You make Tim happy, Saidy. Want be classmate friends under Ms. Pris?"

The rose snickered and giggled at the proposal. Saidy put down her right pom-pom and stuck out her arm.

"Yes. Let's!"

The Z7 imp in casual clothing took the arm and was pulled up from the grass.

"Mmhmhmhmhm" the vined Plant laughed on the inside. "Miridine used me to substitute for her when she was gone. Now I can use you, Saidy, to substitute for when I'm gone."

The blue sunflower shook her head rapidly.

"Um! I don't think I can handle being around a lot of zombies, Ms. Priscilla."

With her eyes to a random spot in the sky, Priscilla tapped the lower portion of her head with her right hand as she was thinking.

"Hm. In that case…" Priscilla started and looked directly at Tim. "Tim, I knight thee Ms. Saidy's impenetrable imp guardian, Sir Tim V. of Anguish."

"Yay!" the imp cheered with both arms doing a wave motion. "Certain Vanquish!"

" _Certain Vanquish?!"_ The shadow flower thought in horror.

However, in the next moment, Timothy replaced the pom-pom that Saidy had put down to lift him and destroyed her feeling of horror.

"Here you go, Ms. Saidy."

Hearing herself called "Ms.", Saidy tried to cover her face with both her arms.

"Ms. Priscilla!"

Priscilla laughed mischievously.

"Oh? You're finally up, Ed?"

It was then Saidy noticed that the snoring had in fact stopped so she turned around and looked up at the basketball All-Star looking down at them.

"Yee-ah." Ed agreed with a nod. He then focused on the shadow flower.

Similarly, Saidy focused on the All-Star in blue and white basketball athletic wear. Then she smiled, tilted her head a little, and waved her right arm.

"Ey, Shady!" the undead basketball player greeted and waved back with his own right hand. Carried in his other hand was a blue and white basketball in contrast to yesterday's orange one. "Gift for you. Way shaying 'thanks'… Aw, Ms. Pris?" The zombie athletic struggled ridiculously with his words.

"Hm. I can see and hear that you really tried, Ed. Good job."

"Huh?" Saidy questioned when she turned back to face her old Plant daycare teacher.

"He can't talk very fast unless it's very easy to say. So he told me what to tell you in case he got stuck." Ms. Priscilla explained herself before clearing her throat aloud and demanding everyone's attention onto her. "This gift is for you, Saidy, as a way of saying 'thanks' for being a super cheerleader to come back—even for me, a weak zombie who can't shoot or talk right. I hope you like it…"

As the rose was narrating for the zombie, Saidy couldn't help having watery tears that made her mentor smile.

"And I hope you'll keep cheering for me and my basketball team at Undeadly Resurrection."

Even though she was worried for a fine moment about what this meant, the shadow flower got up right away and threw up her arms in cheery fashion towards the basketball All-Star.

"Of course, Ed. I'd love to cheer for you and your team."

"Shady…" Ed muttered in a deep voice as he gave what was his attempt of a smile.

"Tim!"

"Hehe-haha!"

There was a white flash as the imp held a small camera in his hands. Saidy's worry returned when she realized that pictures of her cheering a zombie would be spread.

"No. If you're thinking we're going to spread this to the Plants, I'm going to remind you that I am no longer on their side." Priscilla said as she got up from the grass with drumsticks in her hands. "I want to remember this moment, where a Plant—especially one of me and Miridine's own pupils—learned to appreciate a Zombie."

" _Ms. Priscilla… She told me she's on their side without being scared. What could have happened to her and Ms. Miridine?"_

Saidy thought back to the question she had been pondering yesterday.

" _Why would plants join and stay with the Zombies?"_

"Ms. Pris, does this mean Ms. Saidy is on Zombies' side?" Tim asked excitedly.

" _!"_

"Let's not worry about that now, Tim." Priscilla pointed her left wooden drumstick at the gift box and had it levitate to the nocturnal sunflower's arms. "Please open it, Saidy, before the troublesome duo arrive to ruin the moment."

Not knowing what to expect, the cheer flower popped open the lid of the light blue and black box. Inside, was a big pink bow with a few light blue stripes running throughout it.

" _Wha… This is…"_

"What do you think?"

"It's a pretty bow…" Saidy mumbled lowly and continued to look at her new accessory.

"Ed, can you be a gentle zombie and place it for her? Quickly, but gently?"

Listening to the mystical plant, Ed grabbed the large accessory and held onto it as his and Saidy's eyes locked onto each other.

" _My first headpiece… My arms aren't long enough to place anything on my head without it falling down, but now I finally have a bow…"_

The undead athlete slipped the accessory down the very top petal and released the clip to lock onto the petal. When seeing him back away, Saidy was surprised that the accessory hardly even weighed anything. The bow wouldn't damage her delicate petal and it wouldn't appear to make it slump downward anytime soon.

"Daw. Shady pretty."

Without thinking about it, Saidy hugged Ed and rubbed her head against his chest. Ed returned the hug and the two stayed together that way.

Tim had gotten a picture while Ms. Priscilla had dropped her wooden drumsticks in admiration of what she was seeing.

"Thank you, Ed."

As if on cue, the metal gate to an entrance of the park burst open. Both Plant and Zombie released each other as all four's attention turned towards a soldier zombie and basketball All-Star in black waltzing in.

"Oh yeah, let's break it down!"

Once again, Saidy heard the voice come from the boom box the All-Star zombie was carrying. The two zombies walked to the center of the court and stared down at the group on the grass.

"What's up, Ed? How do you want your late-night treat today? Extra creamed?"

The insult was clearly lame that it made Saidy bring her left arm up to hide her small laughter.

But…

"Oh? You laughin' at me, Shadow Flow?"

" _Uh oh."_

Just like that, all attention was on Saidy.

"How's about me and you dance right here, right now?" the All-Star in black and red athletic wear proposed and pointed down with his free hand.

" _Um… What do I do?"_

The shadow flower looked to her companions: Ed shook his head a few times, Priscilla gave a shrug with the vines she had for arms, and Timothy repeatedly nodded. She was at a complete deadlock.

So, not wanting to leave a bad taste in her mouth for laughing at him, Saidy turned around and made her way to the basketball court.

" _Maybe if I apologize, we'll get along together…"_ the dark healer thought as she took her first few steps onto the concrete and felt she was on a different level.

" _He's unarmed so I should be fine…"_

Saidy stopped in the middle of the center ring of the court where the zombie in black basketball clothes was at.

"Listen, I…"

But her kind attempt at apologizing was cut off.

"So this is what's up! Then it's time to drop the boom box! Hit it, D!" the athletic zombie set down his boom box and plopped down backwards onto the cement.

The cheer flower was confused seeing him fall and lay flat on the cement, but suddenly heard the sound of something powerful being shot.

Saidy jerked her head back up and saw a silver rocket flying right to her face.

…

She had forgotten that the soldier zombie was fully armed—including with his trusty ZPG.


	5. Within Basketball

Disclaimer: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 belongs to PopCap. Being five chapters into the story, this will be the last time I mention it.

Author's Note: Summaries aside, keep in mind that this tale is mainly in the first-person (or first-plant?) perspective of Saidy.

To those that did so, thank you kindly for reviewing and following. I hope you are enjoying the slice of life of a cheerleader shadow flower taking a chance to be friendly with the Zombies.

With that all said, enjoy the next chapter brought forth here...

* * *

Earlier in the same night, Saidy rejoined her former group of troublemakers, "The Vindicators" along with her sunflower friend, Capri—who she found out later on to be short for Seneca Prix, the cheer flower that had bested her at the Pep Competition a month ago.

After parting with her group, Saidy met and chatted with the mute chemist at the park with the basketball court. The elite scientist then left to deal with a plant attack on the zombie school, Undeadly Resurrection, but not before reminding Saidy that Plants and Zombies were in the middle of a war—implying that she should be careful about her friendly nature towards everybody.

An interrupted nap afterwards, the shadow flower had a hearty reunion with one of her former Plant daycare teachers, Priscilla, the zombie friend she made and cheered for yesterday, Ed, and even met Capri's zombified adopted little brother, Timothy Prix. Just as the nocturnal sunflower and basketball star were having a tender moment, the troublesome duo of the basketball star in black and the soldier zombie with shades showed up.

Inadvertently, Saidy laughed at the All-Star and was challenged to go against him in the court for doing so. Not wanting to leave a bad impression of herself on him, she confronted the athletic zombie in the middle of the cement court. But before she could apologize, a surprise is bestowed upon her as the undead player in black and red dropped to the ground and a silver rocket was launched by the soldier zombie behind him.

With less than a second before impact, Saidy remembered a piece of advice her other Plant daycare teacher had once told her…

* * *

"Saidy, if at any point in your life you see a zombie's rocket fly towards you, you have two options on surviving it. Can you please tell me what you think they are?" a sunflower with brilliant alternating yellow and teal petals and round teal ornaments questioned the young black and blue sunflower.

"Um… Jump out of the way? Or fall backwards?" the young sunflower answered as she grabbed her daycare teacher's left "hand" that appeared to be an Egyptian artifact made from pristine, multi-colored flat gems.

"Good," the sun pharaoh wearing a pair of green minty-leaf glasses appreciated with a smile. "When it is far, you can dodge. But—and I really hope it never happens to my favorite little cheer flower—if you realize that the rocket is really close to where it is less than a second away, you don't have time to dodge; you have to do something else."

" _Huh… Less than a second away? You'd have to be pretty dumb to let a rocket get that close to you…"_

"I know that look. You don't believe me, do you?"

" _!"_

"I'm not going to go in detail because you're young, but I've seen sunflowers end up like jigsaw puzzles because they tried to dodge ZPGs that were too close to them already." The older plant told the youth with a small frown.

" _Eh?!"_

"Then what do you do? It sounds like it's all over when it is close…" the shadow flower asked with worry.

"Hmhm. Easy. Just make the rocket explode before it hits you. I told you before to never use your powerful beam without rooting, right?"

"Yes."

"When it comes to a ZPG, forget that rule and use your beam right on it. Not only is it going to—hopefully—make the rocket explode, but its power will push you back a little bit so that you won't be hurt by the explosion."

"Wow, Ms. Miridine, you're really smart!" Saidy leaped up and threw her arms up at her teacher.

"No, Ms. Priscilla is, but just between you and me…" the sun pharaoh began and got especially close to the younger plant as she used her artifact arms to cover the sides of her mouth.

She explained something that made the young shadow flower gasp.

"Ms. Miridine—!"

"You don't believe me?" Miridine beamed an innocent smile and pat the dark plant's top petals.

* * *

"Eee!" the shadow flower yelled from being in fear, but also as a green beam launched right out in front of her mouth.

The silver rocket three feet away from her face became enveloped by the Solar Flare beam Saidy unleashed. Like fast-forwarding a microwave oven heating up popcorn, many sounds followed that one moment.

Because she wasn't rooted, Saidy was launched backwards with the force of her super ability even though she only used it for a fraction of a second.

"Ah!" Saidy yelped as she endured the hard landing. Though, it didn't take long for her to jump back up. "Look, I…"

She was upset, but when she focused on the soldier zombie, she saw him holding his black sunglasses to the side as he fell on his knees.

"Mn-heh-heh-heh-heh…" the army-trained zombie whined before falling forward onto the cement and slamming his left fist a few times.

" _Did he want to vanquish me that badly…?"_

When Saidy turned to look at the basketball All-Star in black and red, she saw that he had his mouth wide open as if speechless.

" _And I guess he can't believe that I'm still alive."_

Then the undead athletic closed his mouth as a look of anger came on his face.

" _Uh… He wasn't this mad before…"_

In a flash of a second, the basketball zombie trounced on top of her as she was knocked back down onto the cement floor.

"Ahh!"

"You're done for…" Saidy heard the boom box announce in a dark, evil tone that was much different to the conceited tone she heard just a minute earlier.

Just as a punch was about to be thrown to her eyes covered by her silver wooden frames, the All-Star in black and red was tackled off by the All-Star in blue and white.

The two athletic zombies rolled about as they both scraped against the cement a few times. Before the one sporting the black jersey with the red numbered "53" could get up to make another move towards Saidy, a red thread-like aura enveloped the two basketball zombies.

Naturally, the shadow flower looked up to her left and watched as Ms. Priscilla held both wooden drumsticks in her hands.

"I came to watch a friendly game of basketball, but I suppose 'friendly' is out of the question now."

This would be the first time Saidy had ever seen her Plant daycare teacher upset. Back then, she had always seen her smiling and giggling at all the shenanigans the young plants would bring up. Seeing Ms. Priscilla upset felt heart wrenching to her.

"Ms. Pris-?" Saidy called out softly to try to calm her teacher down.

"You!"

Suddenly, the rose's angry gaze was directed down towards her. Out of reflex, the shadow flower gasped in shock.

"I expected better from you after what I said earlier about appreciating a zombie."

Saidy stayed silent as she felt her eyes getting watery.

" _What did I do wrong?! A rocket was flying right to my face!"_

"Answer me: What's the most important thing to you?"

In the next moment, a blue spherical aura burst open behind Ms. Priscilla that made her be pulled directly into the center of it. Due to the surprise, the rose dropped the two wooden drumsticks she had been using as staves.

"Wha-? Tim!"

"Saidy friend. Hehe. Not let you hurt friend with stupid words not explaining ZPG." The imp with an Elvis hairdo announced with conviction as he approached the shadow flower on the ground.

" _Friend…"_

"Saidy, ZPG was Dance ZPG. Had music, lights, and fireworks. Soldier D was going to blow up Dance ZPG right above Jay to make everything look cool."

"What…?"

Teary-eyed, Saidy got up and saw that the soldier still had his face in the cement. He was still slamming the ground with his left fist and he continuously let out the whine she now knew was actually crying.

A zombie crying.

And it was her fault.

"When Jay say dance, he meant dance, Saidy."

The dark healer walked to the fully equipped soldier zombie. When she approached, he stopped slamming his fist and looked up at her from the corner of his left eye.

"…"

There was a tense silence as the sunflower felt all attention was on her.

"I didn't know you were preparing a dance. A chemist I met earlier told me to be careful around zombies because not everyone is going to be nice to me back. I didn't want to believe him, but when I saw that rocket, I really felt I was going to be a goner…"

This time, the soldier grunted as he got up from the ground.

"Yeh-yeh-yeh-yeh! Dance ZPG cost D $120. If have that, DJ D forgive Shadow Flow."

" _Hm…?"_ Saidy thought in wonder, but looked flustered on the outside. _"He's a DJ? And… I have plenty of money to pay for that. Maybe I should surprise him with a better Dance ZPG?"_

"Okay, I'll pay for it." The shadow flower gave a small smile as she stuck out her right arm. "I promise."

"Yeh? Then we okay. Sorry scare Shadow Flow. Thought you like surprise ZPG." D apologized and explained his own side while shaking Saidy's pom-pom-covered hand.

"M-Maybe you can show me what it looks like later? I'll run home really quick to get my purse so that we can visit the store together."

"Eh? Shadow Flow going with me tonight to Zombopolis? It far."

" _Zombopolis…? The Zombie capital… But if I really want to make it up to him…"_

"Yeah. I want to see you happy again when you get your cool ZPG back again. If not, then I'm not going to be happy either."

The soldier zombie developed what looked like a smile and nodded at her proposition.

" _That's right… I'm only happy if I can make others happy…"_

"Well, brainz," the boom box said in a conceited-sounding voice. Saidy turned to the All-Star whom the boom box spoke for. "If D says sorry, then Jay will say sorry, too. So, sorry."

With a few overemphatic spins of his right arm, the basketball star with the number "53" bowed and kneeled on one knee before the cheer flower.

"Hooray! I forgive you." The nocturnal flower shook her arms around as rustling sounds came from her cheer gear. "And I'll be super happy if you throw the basketball game against Ed!"

"Wh-What?! Hell no, Shadow Flow! Homeboy Ed gonna be put to bed; he gonna get knocked out without a doubt!" Jay denied immediately and ended his boasting with a thumbs-down.

While it was an insult to her zombie friend, Saidy smiled and laughed.

"Haha! That was pretty good, but I believe in Ed—he'll make you eat the words you said for not believing he ever could!"

As she had replied, the dark healer did wave motions with her arms in front, followed it up with a single spin on her roots, and pointed at the basketball star with her right arm at the very end.

Both soldier zombie and Z7 imp let out a deep "Oh!" sound by the end of her response.

"Heh hah!" the boom box blurted out as Jay, the undead All-Star in black and red, turned to face Ed. "You hear that, Ed? Your girl thinks you can scrub the floor with me even though I've torn you up for the past week. What you gonna do?"

The basketball star in blue and white nodded.

"Gonna ball you up—that's what's up." Ed answered with very little struggle.

Both soldier zombie and Z7 imp let out another deep "Oh!" sound as the two basketball All-Stars started playing against each other in their signature sport.

The challenge was accepted.

But as the blue and white basketball was bounced repeatedly between the two players, Saidy turned to face the one that had been left out of the conversation.

"Ms. Priscilla…?"

Priscilla—long having been let go by the gravity grenade Tim had launched—was sitting on the grass right outside of the cement. On her face was a sorrowful look of disappointment.

Saidy saw that her Plant daycare teacher didn't even pick up her drumsticks so (after dropping both her pom-poms and spending a good minute trying) she picked them up and walked to her.

"Ms. Priscilla… I don't like seeing you mad… And I don't like seeing you sad either… Please take these."

The rose snickered as she took each wooden utensil by the hand. Then she stared up at the nocturnal sunflower's face.

"Thank you, my lovely little moonshine."

Saidy closed her eyes with a smile before sitting next to her mentor and watching the two zombies throw the ball about.

No one was scoring, but there wasn't any ball thrown out onto the grass yet. Because of this, Saidy knew that both players were taking the game seriously and doing their best.

"Saidy…" Priscilla mumbled lowly as she watched the basketball game as well.

("Hey, get my boom box out of the court, Big T.")

("Heh-heh-heh-heh. Got it.")

"Yes, Ms. Priscilla?" the shadow flower asked calmly.

There was a silence between the two as both saw Ed jump up and slap away the ball mid-air from one of Jay's three-point attempts.

("Dang, Jay, he got you. He got you, foo'.")

("Shut up, D!")

Both the sunflower and the rose giggled at the rejection. Then, the sunflower tried asking one more time.

"Did you want to tell me something, Ms. Priscilla?"

"Mm-hm," the rose sporting the blue and white bandanna hummed in agreement. "I'm sorry about my outburst. I didn't mean to get so upset…"

A short pause ensued as both saw Jay jump up to dunk the basketball. However, his attempt failed when the ball touched the metal basket and launched upwards like a catapult.

("Daw, brainz!")

The rose gave a small sigh before continuing.

"Being a powerful sorceress and a teacher that feels she needs to tell others when something is wrong, it got out of hand because I knew how much that ZPG meant to D." Priscilla explained. "And yet, it all worked itself out without me."

" _Is that something to watch out for as a teacher?"_ Saidy pondered to herself. _"It looked like Principal Floria didn't want to tear my cheerleading transcript, but something made her do it. Was it the feeling of proving herself more powerful than me?"_

"Ms. Pris," the sunflower began, "what happened on the day I last saw you?"

There was no response as Saidy saw her mentor look down and away.

"What happened on the day Dr. Zomboss declared war on the Plants again?"

Priscilla turned and focused on the piercing gaze of the shadow flower.

"Why? Haven't you asked other plants? Or do they dodge the question?"

"They just say that you and Ms. Miridine are evil plants for joining the Zombies—that you told Dr. Zomboss something secret about the Plants that he just had to declare war right away…"

"Ingo djula niem?!" the spell caster exclaimed with a distraught expression. "Not even having the heart to tell the truth…"

("Huh? Did Ms. Pris just say 'What the brainz?'")

("Hehe-haha. Yup. Say a lot when watching Plant channel.")

"Ms. Priscilla, what happened? I cry inside every time I hear a plant wanting to vanquish you and Ms. Miridine…"

"Hah… Hah…" the rose exasperated with deep breaths. She then composed herself, cleared her throat, and continued looking at the blue sunflower. "Then don't cry anymore. I'll tell you my story on a rainy day, Saidy. I promise."

" _Whatever happened to Ms. Priscilla, it must have been terrible if she doesn't want to tell me right now. But if she promises…"_

"Okay. Then the next time it rains, you better not hide from me. You'd better tell me everything that happened to you and Ms. Miridine on that day."

"No," the rose denied with a shake of her head.

This made the nocturnal sunflower be shocked before seeing a sly smirk on her mentor's face.

"I'm going to tell you everything that led me to join the Zombies—including what happened on that unforgettable day."

"Everything…?" Saidy questioned with surprise.

"Everything."

With that said, the two plants turned to watch the two zombie All-Stars continue to rumble athletically. Neither had scored yet.

" _Ms. Priscilla is always such a trickster. Her life must have been full of fun before that day…"_

"Oh, yeah. Can I ask one important thing, Ms. Priscilla?" the plant with blue leaves asked abruptly.

"If you want to know where Ms. Miridine is, she's in Egypt with her boyfriend. They're looking for clues about her parents."

" _Ms. Miridine has a boyfriend? Um…"_

"Thanks for telling me that, but I was just wondering: Are you a rock star?"

The moment the shadow flower finished asking that, the rose giggled hysterically.

"I'm dressed like this because I'm supporting Undeadly Resurrection. Blue and white are our school colors. As for the drumsticks, Tim got them for me as a gift. With these, I can manipulate magic more precisely. Watch."

Like an actual drummer would, Saidy saw her teacher hit the drumsticks together in a crisscross fashion four times. On the fourth hit, the wooden drumsticks turned a purplish color.

Saidy was in awe at the color change. Then suddenly, the shadow flower saw her mentor point her left drumstick at the blue and white basketball Jay had thrown in the air.

But nothing happened as the basketball continued its journey to the backboard and bounced off. This made the blue sunflower confused.

"Ms. Priscilla?"

"I'll show you another time. For now…" the rose got up from the grass and floated in the air. She then waved the purplish drumsticks around and swayed her head back and forth. "Let's go, Ed! You can do it!"

"Pshaw! Your teacher is cheering for you? That's embarrassing, Ed."

"Yeah. Powerful plant cheering for weak zombie." Ed announced as he stripped the ball away from Jay and ran to the basket. "Won't lose!"

Saidy felt excited when seeing her zombie friend jump unusually higher than she'd seem him before. She stared wondrously as the zombie athletic brought his arms above his head with the ball in his hands.

"Say wha-!?" the boom box shouted for the stupefied zombie who lost the ball.

The stars twinkled. The wind blew.

And Ed dunked the ball in the basket.

The shadow flower imagined fireworks launching up in the sky as she leaped up from the ground.

"Ohh—!" Tim and D both exclaimed with deep voices.

"Yeah, Ed!" Saidy and Priscilla followed up with stupendous happiness. Priscilla continued swinging her glowing drumsticks excitedly. While looking at her zombie friend, Saidy did shaking wave motions with her arms to her right side before switching to her left side.

As the undead athlete in blue and white stared at his two plant companions cheering for him, he jumped up and threw up his fist.

"Yeah-ha-ha!"

"Yeah-yeah," the boom box said and made everyone turn to the zombie in black and red who had his arms crossed. "You think one point's gonna help you? We still got twelve more minutes to go, foe!"

Saidy saw Ed flash Jay a thumbs-down with the grunt sound of an old car horn. This made her giggle, but also made his opponent wide-eyed.

"Oh, hell no! You goin' down for real now, homeboy! Bring it!"

* * *

As it turned out, Jay had been going easy on Ed to begin with. By the end of the twelve minutes, the final score was 1-4.

At the moment, all six of them—Saidy, Priscilla, Ed, Tim, D, and Jay—were sitting close together on the metal bleachers. They had been talking for a few minutes as the two athletes and two cheerleaders were rehydrating themselves with pink slush and fountain water, respectively.

"JT is where all the bad foes hang out, but we ain't ever had any cheerleaders for any of our teams. Be nice if Shadow Flow could cheer for us."

"Ah-ha-ha." Saidy laughed lopsidedly as she shook her head. "I'm going to cheer for Ed's school already."

"Oh? Well, dang." The basketball star in black and red made an obvious frown. "Maybe I'll see you when we play against each other. You got some real good moves; you woulda beat me in that dance-off by a long shot."

"Yeh. For real," the soldier with black sunglasses on in the darkness of night added.

"Haha. Thank you." Saidy appreciated the compliments with a smile. "And sorry for asking, but what's JT?"

"Don't blame yourself for not knowing, but since you seem to be acquainted with us, I suppose it'll be helpful to know what four schools comprise the Zombie force." Priscilla explained. "JT stands for Juvenile Thanatology—it's known for having the most athletic and most aggressive zombies."

"Aw, brainz." Ed complained as he shook his head.

"Come on, Ed. You can't make it to our school without scoring a single shot during tryouts. You're buff, but you gotta have some accuracy, too." Jay announced through the boom box as he slapped the back of his basketball rival.

"That bit's true, but I feel Undeadly Resurrection is where you belong."

"Hehe-haha. Ms. Pris call Ed weak."

In response, the rose stuck her drumsticks inside the Elvis hairdo of the imp in a crisscross fashion.

"H-Hey! Ms. Pris!"

Aside from Tim, the whole group laughed.

"Anyway, Juvenile Thanatology is for the most athletic and most aggressive, Undeadly Resurrection is open for just about any zombie, Incapacitant Cryptography is for the smartest and oddly-talented, and Zomboss Acadamy is for those who want or need to join the war effort immediately."

"Yeh. Any Plant stupid enough to mess with the Crypto's be gone. Boss always make plants keep on hurting with no fighting back." D told the bunch with a grin.

" _Hm…? Dr. Zomboss on the front lines?"_

"Boss?" the blue sunflower questioned with curiosity.

"Nyeh. Killer chemist, Boss. He don't talk and he part robot, but he the most dangerous from the Crypto's."

" _Uh… It couldn't be that mute chemist, could it? Um… But he did have a weapon that didn't let Capri, Gator, or Rich move very much without getting hurt…"_

"Just so I can be careful to watch out for him, what does he look like? Does he have something robot-looking like a green-line for eyes and a computer screen on his mouth?"

"You got that right!"

Saidy gulped at hearing the agreement. She survived an encounter with one of the most dangerous zombies and managed to be on friendly terms with him.

"When me and him sparred with makeshift weapons, he bested me in the blink of an eye, and I'm a powerful sorceress, Saidy." The rose admitted with a twirl of her right arm.

" _R-Really? He's that dangerous?"_

The dark healer shook off what she heard about the chemist and decided to try to change the subject.

"So I know where Ed, Jay, and D go to. What about you, Tim?"

"Hehe. I went to Zomboss Acadamy. Graduated in two minutes when got there."

" _Wha—?! Two minutes?!"_

"What did you do for two minutes?" Saidy asked in disbelief.

"Was given Z-11 Sups with ten bullets each. Told to shoot a plant dummy target as fast as possible in ten seconds. Shot it eighty times. Had to reload three times."

"Yep. Tim is electrifyingly quick, Saidy. That's why he's the perfect bodyguard for you." Priscilla agreed with the imp, but gave a small sigh. "However, because of his remarkable ability, he does tend to get called into battle almost—if not always—every single time since he graduated."

"Heh-hah. Yeah. Be great if Plants stop fighting Zombies. Then can hang out more with zombie friends, Ms. Pris, Ms. Saidy, and Big Sis Sunflower…"

" _Huh…"_ Saidy couldn't help, but smile at the thought of the small zombie. _"He wants the war to stop, too. I don't think he'd laugh at my dream if I told him…"_

There was a small silence as the group of two plants and four zombies looked down at the court.

"So just one twenty-minute game?" the shadow flower asked.

"Yeah. Me and Ed's schools are going to face off tomorrow night. Thought we'd warm up before the fight." Jay pointed out as he stretched and sipped on his brainz slushy.

"Does that mean you two are friends?"

"No," the boom box said and had the shadow flower turn to the basketball star in question. "We're bros."

Saidy saw the All-Star look away when she smiled at him.

"He saved me from a cactus. But nasty thing had one of its needles shoot right through my voice box so I can't talk anymore. Friggin' sucked until Dr. Doppler helped make this boom box that says what I want to say."

"Dr. Doppler? I'm guessing that's the zombie computer scientist that was with you guys yesterday?"

"Yeah. That's right. He does a lot of sound stuff. He's helped all of us here… except Ms. Pris."

Priscilla frowned when being mentioned.

"Hmph. I told him that I didn't appreciate him using me to find out how plants could hear things." The mischievous rose yanked her drumsticks out of Tim's hair and drummed on her vines a few times. "But if that research he's doing gives me staves to use on the Plants to which they can't fight and we don't need to vanquish them, I'll have to treat him to a baked brainz cake."

Hearing her mentor and the group of zombies chat together with her made Saidy ponder deeply.

"… _Things are so different from what I first thought…"_

("Aw, come on, Ms. Pris! Make us a cake, too! We always do what you want us to do!")

"… _The Plants say that the Zombies are all evil…"_

("Ah-ah-ah!")

"… _But I'm starting to see that they're all a big weird family that just want the war to go away…"_

* * *

The digital clock with neon blue numbers continuously blared out the time of 11:17 pm.

It had been about three hours since Saidy woke up and after a long night full of memorable moments, she was finally back in her home.

"Ha…" the shadow flower sighed as she looked down. Around her stem was a beaded silver chain supporting a light blue purse with a smiling sunflower's face on it. Enclosed underneath the purse's single magnetic seal was a big cut of her saved money as well as her unequipped golden pom-poms.

" _I'm ready."_

With hesitation, the dark healer opened the door to her home and shut it behind her until she heard the lock click. She knew for sure she would spend around an hour trying to reopen it when she got back.

"Hah…" Saidy gave another sigh and slapped a taped white paper on her front door.

Before dashing away, she read what she wrote on the paper to herself one more time:

" _Hi Capri! I found your little brother, Tim. He still loves his Big Sis Sunflower :)_ _We're going on a long trip to make a friend happy, but we should be back by tomorrow night. Until then, see you!"_

Smiling with satisfaction, the blue sunflower ran off towards the park containing the basketball court.

It didn't take long for the teenage shadow flower to get to the park, but she felt more and more anxious with every rooted step she took.

Saidy ran just past the park with the basketball court. From here on out, she was on Zombie territory.

Without delay, she ran to the parked black, four-door sedan that had its headlights turned on. The driver's window was rolled down and Saidy saw D in the driver's seat with Tim as the front passenger.

"Hey, Saidy, hop into the back and we'll get rollin'," the soldier told the plant calmly compared to her growing worry.

"Okay," she agreed and fidgeted with the rear left door handle. It took a minute, but it was a lot faster than opening a doorknob. She went in and pulled the door to close it behind her—being very careful to not have it catch onto any of her petals.

Inside, the shadow flower saw she was on a comfy black seat that didn't chafe against her body. So naturally, she lied down on it.

"Zombopolis almost two hundred miles away. If we go fast, we can make in three hours."

"Wow. That is far. Don't you guys have teleporters?"

The imp laughed at her question.

"Yes. Problem is they teleport zombies, not plants. Hehe. There lots of reasons why don't teleport plants."

" _Of course."_

"Okay, Saidy, you sure you want to go to Zombopolis?" Both zombies turned to look at the shadow flower.

" _He sounds worried…"_

"You know how to drive, right?" the dark healer asked with her own worry starting to build up.

"Psh. D used to be pilot for Zombie Airforce. Driving car like driving with training wheels." The DJ zombie admitted with a conceited voice.

"Alrighty. Then I'm as ready as I'll ever be." Saidy announced with a deceiving smile.

" _But it's pretty scary. I've never traveled farther than a few miles from home and now I'm going straight to the zombie capital."_

"Coo'! We going then!" the army-trained zombie agreed and made the car accelerate. A short moment afterwards, the sunflower heard the radio come alive as a zombie rap song started to play.

"Ms. Saidy excited for first trip to Zombopolis?" Tim asked as of his plant friend.

"Y-Yeah. I am."

She had tried to answer happily, but it was obvious her voice was shaky. And she couldn't blame it on the car since they had been driving smoothly.

"Heh-heh. It's okay. Tim scared, too."

" _H-He is?"_

"Hey, Big T, don't say things like that. We gotta watch each other's back on this trip. I hella don't want Ms. Pris pissed off at me."

"Why are you scared, Tim?" Saidy couldn't help herself from asking. She'd already heard enough to know that he was a force to be reckoned with.

"We're going to be far away from anything. If something happens, no one going to help us. So, like D say, we have to watch each other if something happens."

" _Uuu…"_ the adolescent healer thought to herself in fear.

"Ms. Saidy going to watch our backs if something does happen, right?"

With little hesitation…

"Yes. I'll be there."

"Hehe-haha! Hear that, D? Saidy is on the Zombies' side."

" _Me? On the Zombies' side? That's not what I meant…"_

"Dang. G-yeah, brainz."

" _Uh…"_

"No problem. I'm on my friends' side." The blue sunflower said aloud despite her worry of the future.

" _What's going to happen on this trip?"_

After a few minutes of listening to a cheesy song, Saidy closed her eyes and started to fall asleep to get away from all her stress.

A moment before she traveled to her dreamland, Saidy swore she heard the rap music cut off.

"Brainz! Renegade… things seen on highway Z84… Don't… near forest swamp!"

Not realizing the danger ahead, the cheer flower drifted soundlessly to a sleep as the zombie rap music came back on.


	6. Without Confidence

Author's Note (10/04/17): With all the problems in the world recently, I hope everyone reading this is doing okay. If you are one of those affected by recovery, know that there is a shadow flower cheering out there for your betterment.

On a story-related note, I'm trying to keep major events in sync with main game releases. I think it'll be an easier read that way.

Thank you kindly for listening and I hope you enjoy the chapter...

* * *

Not long ago, Saidy managed to survive a ZPG to her face. But according to the zombies around her, the ZPG launched was some kind of dance machine. Feeling apologetically indebted after destroying it, the shadow flower gave the DJ soldier zombie, D, a promise that she would buy a replacement Dance ZPG for him—even if it meant traveling to Zombopolis.

Shortly thereafter, the basketball game between Ed and Jay, the basketball All-Star in black and red, began while Saidy and Priscilla chatted. When Ed finally scored a shot through a slam-dunk, Saidy became ecstatic, mesmerized, and cheerful for her zombie friend.

Despite the flipped outcome of Ed losing, the shadow flower became friends with the group around her as they all talked for a while. She learned that there were four unique schools when it came to the zombies, learned that the mute chemist she had a silent friendship with was incredibly dangerous, and learned that the folks around her wanted the war with the plants to end as much as she did.

Now, returning to her promise earlier with D, Saidy was in the back seat of his black, four-door car on the way to Zombopolis. Even though she had D and Timothy Prix to watch over her, the blue sunflower was beyond worried about what could happen during the long trip and decided to try to sleep to do away with it.

Using her light blue purse as a pillow, the cheer flower snoozed with light breaths as a nightmare approached—both near and far…

* * *

" _February 23, 2016—the day Dr. Zomboss declared war on the Plants…"_

"After conquering key territory and losing my interest in fighting, I thought I could set this burdensome war aside. But now that you've taken something important from me—something important from all the zombies—I will not conceive! We will not stop at brainz; we will not stop until every one of you plants feel the same pain me and my army have felt! This is a declaration of war, you pathetic excuses of natural selection, for the zombies are coming to get their revenge!"

" _Nobody was prepared for how horrifying it would be the very next day…"_

* * *

"Ms. Miridine… Ms. Priscilla… Where are they? Why aren't they here?" a young shadow flower with a light blue face asked.

She looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was a quarter until eight in the morning—the time when school would start at the Super Sprouts plant daycare.

"They did say they'd play 'Roots and Vines' with me."

Sure enough, the board game was set up on the small, low, round table in front of her.

Disappointed, Saidy gave a sigh as she had her head rest on the table. She then grabbed the one dice (after a lot of fidgeting), shook it, and dropped it on the table.

She rolled a four. There was a root on that space so she moved her blue game piece and climbed to space number fourteen.

"Hm… Ms. Priscilla would've probably been mad and said, 'Don't even think about getting a six.'"

The young sunflower giggled at her thought. She then closed her eyes for a moment as she got up and gave a mouthful yawn.

"Poopie dookie. I woke up early to attend class on time for once and this is my reward? Ngh!"

Saidy stomped her front right root in annoyance as she looked back at the clock.

It was ten minutes until class started.

"Huh…?"

She looked around the daycare full of colorful drawings on the walls, colorful books on the big bookshelf, clay pots in rows and columns, and bags of Caroline brand fertilizer by the small kitchen—there was no one around but her.

"It's a school day today. Where is everybody?"

As if to answer her question, a loud alarm started going off outside. She hoped it wasn't what she thought it was.

With an annoying creak of the wooden white door, Saidy walked outside and gasped at what she saw. Since the daycare was on one of the highest hills in Suburbia, she had a clear view of what she thought was two or three thousand plants all prepped in a mile long stretch at the front of the neighborhood.

Peashooters were on the roofs and the streets with their gatling at the ready. Sunflowers were either rooted or tending to heal flowers they had nearby. Chompers were at the very front or hiding behind houses and fences. Cacti were in the back of them all—some of which had garlic drones deployed and floating in the sky.

Even though there were a lot of plants together, Saidy did not hear anything besides the alarm that continued going off for the next five minutes.

When the loud alarm did finish, the young blue sunflower swore she could feel an earthquake. A couple hundred feet away from the plant front line was the imposing zombie army—led by forty gargantuan-sized zombies holding wooden electric poles. If that wasn't scary enough, the two gargantuars leading the army had menacing red eyes.

"Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!"

The dark healer could hear the chant of the thousand other zombies trailing behind the gargantuars despite not being able to see most of them.

"That's right, my minions!"

Saidy's attention shifted immediately to the towering mechanical monstrosity behind the army—the Zombot.

"The Z Army will conquer and destroy everything these brainless brussels sprouts hold dear!"

The shadow flower shivered at the sound of that declaration.

"Yah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!"

The distance between the two armies was diminishing. Soon enough, an herbivore Saidy had only heard about through storybooks announced the final count.

"Ready!" an evolved cornstalk exclaimed through a megaphone.

Saidy saw a wave of tension as every plant looked at the approaching enemy.

"Aim!"

Every plant aimed at one of the gargantuars.

Then the moment came.

"Boogie!"

A disco zombie burst out from a sewer drain in the middle of the leafy formation on the main street and immediately started spinning around wildly with his disco ball.

Dozens of rooted peashooters were vanquished in seconds.

But it didn't stop there.

More disco zombies kept coming out from that manhole and others that made every plant that had already aimed at a gargantuar lose their concentration.

"Wahahahaha! Attack!" the one who ruled them all laughed in satisfaction.

The two red-eyed gargantuars shouted into the air before charging at the horticulture brigade. No plant had ever seen or even expected to see a gargantuar run. Before they knew it, those in the way of the giants were crushed beneath the two-ton weight as the duo rampaged towards the cacti.

Meanwhile, Saidy saw many fireworks launching into the sky—with each bursting at the very top and releasing silver-colored remnants onto the many plants on rooftops.

In actuality, the fireworks were soldier zombies who had used their rocket jump to gain height and launch ZPGs onto helpless, rooted plants huddled together.

Filled with disbelief, the blue sunflower cringed and closed her eyes at what she saw next.

The winner of the battle was decided in a mere ten seconds.

* * *

"Saidy…?"

"Uhh…" The shadow flower mumbled lightly when hearing her name. She opened her eyes ever so slowly and noticed that the small zombie in the leather jacket was sitting on the car floor right in front of her instead of the passenger seat next to D. She then saw that she was cradling his left arm with both of hers. "Tim…?"

"You okay?"

Saidy nodded her head in agreement as she let loose the two-arm hold on her friend's arm and sat up.

When the sunflower looked at the car stereo, she noticed that the time was 12:28 am. That meant that it was now Thursday, July 13th, 2017.

"How close are we?" Saidy asked as she lifted the imp up off the car floor and sat him next to her.

"Neh. Been an hour. Still have two more." The soldier informed the plant companion in the back. "Going to take first break soon. D's hands starting to get shaky."

"O-Okay."

"Heh-hah. Want to hear story, Saidy?" Timothy asked with a mischievous smile.

"Huh?" the shadow flower muttered abruptly and looked down at the imp next to her. "What kind of story…?"

"Good story. Happened two weeks ago with D and Ms. Pris."

D snickered and laughed.

"Want to hear, too. Taking break now."

Sure enough, the soldier made the car slow from its eighty mile per hour speed and parked it to the side of the road.

Saidy noticed that they were in the vast green plains with hills rolling for miles. The sight was breathtakingly peaceful with the moonlight.

" _Wow…"_

She then returned to the imp after the beautiful distraction.

"If you say it's good, then okay—please do tell."

"Hehehe-hahaha. Well, if you really want to know, Ms. Saidy…"

* * *

About two weeks ago, a certain red rose was hanging out with an imp and a soldier zombie in the garage of a small house. The garage was full of many technical gizmos letting loose a grand spectrum of colors in all sorts of patterns.

"Hah! Take that!" the rose scoffed at concluding a dance to a rap song the DJ challenged her in dancing to. For the visit, she sported a pair of blue ribbons tied into bows on the top sides of her head, and had a cape behind her that was decorated with purple and gold glitter in a checkerboard style.

"Brainz. You mean, Ms. Pris. You got moves and you like showing off. What kinda teacher are you?" D told the plant that Tim had brought along.

"Mmhmhmhmhmhm. An unlicensed one that likes to have fun with her students, of course." Priscilla replied with a big grin on her face. "Besides, wasn't it you that said I couldn't 'bust a move'?"

"Yeh. Never saw you dance so thought didn't know how."

In the meanwhile, Tim, the onlooker of the two, continued to drink his large brainz slushy.

"Ah-ha-ha-hm! That was your mistake! I can do anything a zombie can do!" the plant declared pompously as she closed her eyes and spun around her staff that was a black baton with plastic white endcaps.

This made the DJ upset, but he laughed evilly after some time.

"Hyeh-heh-heh-heh! Oh, yeh? Was told by Crypto's that almost no zombie can drive, but D can drive and fly jet. If you can drive D's car to the park and back with no prob, D will call you Ms. Pilot Pris."

"Hm… Driving a car…" the rose pondered for a moment. "I don't see why not. What do you want if I can't drive?"

It looked as if the soldier was surprised at the offer, but he appeared to give it some thought before answering her.

"You have to buy D a supersize brainz slushy like the one Tim has."

"A supersized one?" Priscilla turned to look at the imp so he waved at her. "Really, Timothy Prix? I thought they overcharged me!"

"Tim sorry. Always like getting big slushy and you were buying." The Z7 imp admitted with a shake of his head.

"Gh…" Ms. Priscilla sighed heavily before focusing on the DJ turning off the dance devices in the garage. "Yeah, I'll buy you a supersized slushy if I can't drive. But if I can, please don't call me 'Pilot Pris' because I have a few students that I know would make fun of me for it."

"Eh? Why? Being called pilot an honor."

"Yes, but when you have zombie students who can't talk as well as others, things are different. Ms. P is what they call me. Now, if you imagine…"

All of a sudden, the DJ zombie burst out laughing and slammed his left fist a few times on a table.

"Pff! Hahahaha! Might as well call you Ms. Piss if they call you that! Haha!"

The imp snorted like a pig and started coughing out his pink treat with insane laughter.

"Shut up!" the rose exclaimed at the interjection. "Ed made me so happy when he called me 'Pretty Priscilla' one time, but within two days, everybody at Undeadly Resurrection was laughing at me and making bathroom jokes all month long. Even Miridine and Dr. Zomboss burst out laughing when they heard about it. Ugh!"

* * *

"Hmhmhm-ha-ha-ha!" the shadow flower burst out laughing along with the two zombies around her.

"Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-heh-heh-heh!" the imp giggled crazily as he collapsed onto the plant.

"Eh-heh-heh-heh! Hahahaha!" the soldier laughed as he took off his black shades and rubbed his eyes.

The three travelers all enjoyed the warm moment and let their worries slip away.

* * *

Stirring awake from another nap, Saidy gave a mouthful yawn and saw that Tim was lying asleep on her stem. Now instead of her, he was using her purse as a pillow.

"Are you still okay, D?" the shadow flower asked as she looked out the closed car window and noticed that they were driving through what appeared to be a decaying forest.

"Yeh. Driving through forest hard. Lots of turns, but also been hearing some bad news about this part."

"What kind of bad news?"

Just as she had asked, a red thread-like aura surrounded the car as the fast speed went down to a slow speed.

" _Uh oh…"_

"Eh…? Rose here…?" the DJ said aloud as he parked the car to the side. The aura of red lines disappeared as the DJ turned to look at the shadow flower who was looking at him. "D didn't want to fight, but fighting come to us."

Right after he announced that, a tick-tock knock came from the glass window by the driver's side. When both D and Saidy turned, they saw the smiling face of a light blue-colored rose.

The stranger waved with her empty rose hand.

Having no better option, the DJ waved back with a weak smile.

And then he rolled down the window…

"Hi. My apologies for the interruption, but do you have room in your vehicle for one more?"

A hitchhiking frost rose.

"Yeh, but teacher say to never pick up strangers—'specially with magic and in scary forest."

The frost rose with the silver tiara covered her mouth and laughed.

"I see," the icy plant said as she turned to look at the shadow flower. "Hm? Is something wrong with my face?"

" _She's beautiful and she doesn't sound as conceited as Ms. Priscilla…"_ Saidy thought before answering her. "Ah. No. But what are you doing out here by yourself?"

"I was forsaken by a magical plant conclave. Having no place welcoming me anymore in the past, I traveled to the future to begin anew. I arrived nearby not more than an hour ago."

" _Forsaken…? Abandoned by plants?!"_

"If you have no problem hanging out with zombies, get in." D announced as he unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open.

"Ah!" the frost rose exclaimed excitedly as she floated to the other side of the car and entered through the open passenger door. Sitting down and using an icicle, she pulled the door to close it. "Thank you ever so much. My name is Beatrice, but feel free to call me what endears you the most."

Saidy saw that this rose had no thorns on her icy vines and sported a sapphire gem belt around her stem. She had white cuffs of fur immediately before her rose hands, a little before the end of her four vine legs, and around the collar of her majestic light blue cape. Linking her cape together was a large diamond-shaped sapphire stone and at the top of her tiara was another sapphire gem—beautifully crafted into a heart shape.

"Be-uh-trees?" D repeated and received an excited nod from the frost rose. "Good brainz. The name is D. Known as DJ soldier zombie."

The soldier motioned his right hand to the shadow flower in the back seat.

"That Saidy. She cheer flower friend."

Being introduced, the dark healer smiled and waved.

"Hi!"

"Hello!"

The DJ then pointed his right hand to the imp lying on the plant's stem.

"Zombie imp sleeping also friend. He Tim."

"Are you his caregiver, Saidy?" the frost rose asked at seeing the closeness of the two.

"Ah-ha… I guess we're like that to each other."

Meanwhile, D got the car back on the road and continued the drive.

"Where did Beatrice want to go? We're headed to Zombopolis—zombie capital—for quick visit."

"As I explained earlier, I do not have a home so I am searching for a new one. If you do not mind, can I travel along wherever you three may go until I find one?"

D shook his head left to right in denial.

"D can't. Go to parties and stuff. Some zombies all talk about vanquishing plants. Be bad if came. And Tim go to battle plants a lot so not sure if even has home, too. Always hangs out with someone else."

It was obvious to the shadow flower that the icy cold rose frowned when told this.

"I see. I am not the only one who lacks a home. That is most disappointing."

But then she smiled afterwards.

"Thank you very much for considering my safety, though. I do not regret my decision in going against the plant conclave anymore after hearing you, D."

"Eh-heh-heh. Sure." The DJ laughed in a goofy manner.

Saidy easily noticed the embarrassment and nervousness within his short laugh, but kept to herself.

"Why Beatrice go against plants?"

The dark healer had been wondering that as well.

"I saw a vision of the future. It was one that made me smile, but when I brought it to the attention of other magical plants, they told me that I was delusional and hallucinating." Beatrice explained as she gazed off to the window she was nearest to. "I attempted to make them consider the possibility of such a peaceful vision happening…"

There was a soft tap on the glass as Saidy guessed Beatrice's silver tiara must have touched the passenger window.

"But then they called me a traitor… All my devoted learning, studying, and mastering thrown away just because I saw a vision of everyone smiling…"

" _Uh… That's what I'm scared of… If it happened to Beatrice, it could happen to me, too…"_

"The council demanded I return to my studies and stated that I would be punished for attempting to spread blasphemous content…"

Beatrice must have dropped her icicle wand because the nocturnal sunflower heard a soft thud on the car floor in the front.

"It may sound treacherous for a plant to want everyone to be happy together in this world full of differences… But that is…"

Saidy saw the soldier reach out with his right arm to the frost rose and placed it around her collar.

"That is why I…"

Beatrice rested her head full of light blue petals on top of the storage space between the driver and passenger seat as she appeared to welcome the arm around her. She couldn't see her face, but Saidy thought the frost rose must have been crying with the sniffling jolts she could see and hear coming from her.

"You beautiful Beatrice, and you nice ice rose, too. There no prob if plants happy with zombies."

"Thank you, D."

And the two stayed together that way.

Saidy caught a glimpse of the DJ's left hand shaking on the steering wheel. With the other arm around the frost rose, she thought he must have been trying very hard to keep the car going where it needs to go.

" _How many plants have joined the zombies?"_

For a few minutes, Saidy gazed out the rear left window and saw rotten trees whooshing by.

"Brainz…?" the army-trained zombie muttered in confusion and made the shadow flower look forward through the front windshield.

There was a blue truck parked to the side of the road that had its lights continuously blinking.

"What is it, D?" Saidy asked with wonder as their car neared the parked one.

"Other zombies pro'lly. They have z-mergen-z lights on, though, so going to check it out."

Thus, the DJ pulled the car over to the side—directly behind the truck with blinking lights. When the car stopped, Beatrice lifted her head off the storage space and looked at the vehicle ahead of them. Saidy watched as everyone's front became colorized with red and yellow each time the rear lights of the truck blinked.

It was eerie to say the least.

"Mm'kay. D gonna check out what's up. Sorry if this take a little while, Saidy."

"No-no. You're fine. Just be careful, okay?" Saidy replied with a mix of joy and worry.

"Yeh," D agreed as he turned off the car.

"Would it be alright if I go with you?"

"Neh. Don't. Not all zombies feel same way 'bout plants. Stay here, Beatrice."

Saidy saw the frost rose lower her head, but nod.

"I understand. Do stay safe."

"Eh-heh-heh." The soldier nodded in agreement with a smile.

" _He likes her. Hmhmhm."_

After that, D exited the car and walked towards the driver's side of the parked blue truck. Saidy had her eyes on the soldier the whole time, but looked to the frost rose when she turned around to see her.

"Saidy?"

She easily noticed the watery tears below her eyes.

"Yes, Beatrice?"

The frost rose hesitated for some time as Saidy saw her bite her 'lip'.

"Is it strange for a plant to enjoy the company of a zombie?"

" _And… she likes him."_

"W-Well… Uh…"

She then remembered something Miridine had once told her when she was learning how to plant.

"Even an ugly tin can can keep a pretty flower alive."

Beatrice smiled beautifully at her response.

"Ahhh… Mmhmhm!" With a long exasperation and short giggling, the rose closed her eyes and swayed her head back and forth. "This lonely mistress of ice is in lovely paradise."

" _That's right. She's looking for a home…"_

"Hey, Beatrice," Saidy began as the frost rose in question opened her eyes and stopped her swaying. "Earlier you mentioned looking for a home. I have a bedroom I don't use so it wouldn't bother me at all if you want to share my home."

The icy cold perennial had her eyes wide with excitement.

"You really mean it, Saidy?!"

Smiling, the cheerleader shadow flower nodded.

"Ah! I hope we can be—!"

"Grah!"

Both girls turned to the front and saw the soldier zombie running away from two dark, leafy green plants with sharp teeth.

They were swamp chompers called chomp things and they were spraying out muck in their chase.

"What?!" the frost rose yelled. She nabbed her icicle wand off the floor, opened and exited the passenger door with it, and with a mean glare on her face, pointed it at the two fiends chasing the zombie. Saidy heard a crackling in the atmosphere as she watched a thick blue and white energy surround the wand in the rose's grasp.

That built-up energy was released along with a few smaller bursts of hard ice.

The chomp thing immediately behind D was frozen.

What Beatrice did next would make Saidy see her as an eternal ally of the zombies: The frost rose used her wand that had what looked like a mace made of ice and struck the large head of the swamp creature.

"Teh-hah!"

Unfrozen a moment later, the murky beast of a plant fell onto the dirt. It was immobilized, defeated, and vanquished all too fast.

The other chomp thing turned its attention away from the soldier zombie and spewed leafy refuse at the icy perennial close by.

"Feast on this!"

Beatrice then swung her wand with the mace at the chomper. To Saidy's astonishment, the mace end broke off and went right into the murky monster's mouth.

"Humph!" With a simple vocal command, the mace burst within the fiend's mouth and ended its plant life instantaneously.

D had been running away, but stopped and gazed at the frost rose after seeing her defeat the two plants that were hot on his trail.

"Thanks, B."

"You're welcome, D."

Seeing the warm smiling face on the rose after such quick and crude vanquishes made the shadow flower wonder how the daily lives of those constantly enwrapped in the war were.

The soldier opened the driver's door and opened the storage compartment between the two front seats. Upon closing it, Saidy saw that he had his trademarked Z1 assault blaster in his hand. Being given a closer look compared to the last time she saw it, she noticed that the ammo storage had thousands of tiny yellow rounds in contrast to the usual lot of a few dozen, large-sized rounds. She could only wonder what surprise would come out from his weapon.

"Stay here, Saidy. Zombie out there. Gonna try help him."

With that stated, the soldier exited the vehicle and closed the door. He then went behind the car and popped open the trunk. When he closed it, Saidy saw that he had his trusty ZPG equipped on his back. Fully equipped, the soldier went beside the frost rose waiting for him in front of the sedan and the two peered into the mossy woods of a swamp forest.

"Come back! We are over here!"

The shout from the icy perennial stirred the imp awake as he looked up at Saidy's face.

"Saidy? What's going on?" the imp asked as he got up, turned to the front of the car, and saw an equipped D standing next to a floating frost rose.

"We're in a forest full of rotten chompers and there's a zombie out there. D and Beatrice, the frost rose, are trying to help him."

"Heh. Then time for Tim to help, too."

The Z7 imp pulled open the rear right door and hopped out.

"Wait, Tim!" Saidy yelled as she unbuckled the purse around her stem and had it remain behind on the back seat in the car. She then hopped out root first onto the dirt ground of the putrid forest around her. _"Capri has to see Tim… I can't let her down…"_

"Brainz…? Okay then. We gonna help 'im out together then." D said aloud when seeing everyone in on the situation together. "Let's go, Team ZPG!"

" _Team ZPG? Whatever…"_ the shadow flower thought as she turned to the imp and saw him smirking at her. She tried to cast her neon blue healing beams on the small zombie, but felt that she couldn't do so. _"Ngh. If Tim or D get hurt, I won't be able to heal them…"_

"Grooh! Brainz!"

After that yell from the unknown zombie, the group heard four chompers yelp one by one as they were vanquished by what sounded like a rapid-fire turret.

As they were making their way to the source of the noise, two chomp things came out from the left. Behind them was a group of six weeds that all looked as murky as the chompers.

" _I'm on my friends' side..."_

"Ee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!"

In merely a second, one carnivorous plant had already fallen under the insane assault by the Z7 imp.

Saidy was stunned.

"Magnificent," Beatrice commented. And by the time she finished, the imp in the leather jacket had already reloaded his dual weapons. He then proceeded to shoot the other chomp thing.

Meanwhile, D pointed his Z1 assault blaster at the group of weeds and began firing. When Saidy watched, she saw that the bullets let out were normal sized instead of the tiny size she expected from the ammo clip. If that was the case, then he wouldn't need to reload for a very long while.

Three weeds were downed by the DJ's critical hits.

In that moment, Beatrice charged up blue and white energy within her icicle staff. With a sweeping motion, the frost rose then released the energy as jagged spikes of ice materialized in front of her and reached outwards to the three remaining weeds.

They were frozen, but fell immediately when the ice wore off.

A flawless victory from the zombie-plant group.

But Saidy was worried. She hoped it wouldn't happen, but Saidy imagined that the longer they stayed here, the bigger the waves of enemies would get.

In the clear, the foursome moved towards the sound of a turret continuously firing. They all saw the red sparks bursting from the contraption and saw what looked like an overweight zombie in a landscaper's outfit behind the turret's controls.

" _An engineer…"_

Before they could get closer, another round of swamp creatures showed up. This time there were three chomp things and nine weeds.

" _Uh…"_

"Give 'em a lift, Big T!" the soldier exclaimed as he pushed a button.

While D leaned forward and downwards, Tim had tossed an orange ball in the middle of the group of plants.

The orange ball was the imp's trademarked gravity grenade and it burst into a blue field that made all twelve of the swamp creatures be pulled into the center in a mash of green.

"Hehe. Boom!"

When Tim shouted, D had fired a ZPG onto the group.

Saidy gasped, turned away sharply, and closed her eyes. She knew what to expect.

There was a single powerful explosion. And then came the technical sound of something going away—which she thought might have been the gravity grenade. Following that was the sharp sound of leaves being trampled on by something heavy.

"Heh heh. Thanks, Big T. Almost beat my record."

"Hehe-haha. Yeah, just two more and would've."

Saidy reopened her eyes and looked around to see where the plants had been at. There, she saw a heaping mess of green plant parts littered with spiky white bits of teeth.

" _Ehh-uuu…"_

"Hm… I sense a familiar energy from these plants…"

The shadow flower turned to the frost rose and saw a worried expression on her face for once. And since Beatrice was worried, Saidy's own worry grew.

As a team, the four continued onward to the landscaper who was still on the turret. With the distance shortening and the chunky zombie pausing his rapid firing, the frost rose spoke.

"Excuse me, sire, but our traveling group is here to help you."

When she finished, the turret and the guy on top of it turned around as the device was pointed directly at the frost rose's face.

Beatrice gasped.

"Stavega!" D yelled as he jumped in front of the icy cold plant. The undead gardener turned to the DJ.

"What in brainz nation that?" the mustached stranger asked abruptly.

"Nothin'. But it got your attention to not vanquish friendly plant. Frost rose Beatrice on our side. Shadow Flow Saidy on our side, too. Just like Ms. Pris and Miridine."

"Eh. Good brainz," the engineer commented as he pushed a button on his control panel and made the turret compress into the palm of his hand.

Saidy was amazed at the technological marvel.

"Sorry. Swamp forest full of plant chompers and weeds. Name's Jim and here as Top Zombie to trim."

The two plants nodded at the introduction.

"Top Zombie? You? Hehe-haha. What really happen?" Tim questioned with disbelief and wonder.

"Daw… Nobody believe Jim, The Mean Trim…" the landscaper muttered in a disappointed voice.

The group looked sharply to the right as loud growl sounds and ecstatic cries resounded in the decaying forest.

"Jim thought only ten chompers in swamp. Vanquished maybe hundred already, brainz." He told the bunch before pointing at the green mess the four just went past.

When they looked, the green mess was dissolving into the forest dirt floor with a ghastly sound.

"She followed me…" Beatrice mumbled so lowly that the sunflower barely caught it.

Saidy turned to the frost rose and saw her appear even more worried.

"We need to go."

"What? Why, brainz? Why not help Jim trim the root of weird swamp plants?" the landscaper asked with an upset attitude.

Beatrice simply went on in her explanation.

"Those plants are reanimated husks of their former selves. While not as potent as the original, their power is in numbers…"

Piercing shrieks came out from what might have been hundreds of weeds along with the roaring malevolent laughter from dozens of chomp things.

A bitter chill went through Saidy's body. Everyone was in danger.

"Jim, that lot. We go now!" Tim yelled.

Except for the rose who levitated along, the group of five ran back towards the road.

The black sedan and blue truck were less than a minute away as nothing but a few rotten trees were in the way.

"Brainz! Everybody at Zombopolis gonna laugh at Jim for failing easy assignment!" the engineer in a gardener's outfit complained.

"Whoever sent you was greatly mistaken. The plant responsible—"

Saidy turned around when Beatrice stopped talking mid-sentence. She saw that the ice plant had fallen onto the forest floor full of shriveled leaves and lost her tiara with a heart-shaped sapphire gem as it landed at the sunflower's roots. Saidy quickly picked it up and approached the downed perennial who had the back of her icy cape smudged black.

"Where do you think you are going, Beatrice Auburn?" a shrill voice resounded in the sunflower's mind that paralyzed her with fear. "I believe you remember the consequence of betraying Mistress Virosa…"

The dark healer quickly noticed a large mound of dirt traveling directly towards the injured plant from behind.

Being familiar with Gator, the fire chomper from her gang, she knew what would happen if she didn't do something.

But just as she was about to move forward and kneel down to help, Beatrice threw her arm holding the icicle wand forward at her. The sunflower was pushed back by what felt like a super-powered fan.

As soon as her roots left the ground, Saidy saw the inevitable before her eyes as a swamp chomper burrowed out from the dirt with the frost rose in its mouth.

In mid-flight, Saidy saw another chomp thing burrow out of the spot where she had just been at.

With a rough landing to the back seat of D's car, she saw the first chomp thing close its mouth with Beatrice inside. Everything started to go black for her after a hard impact against the rear left door, but not before seeing the one arm of the frost rose sticking out flash and disappear in light blue sparkles.

"Nuuooaahh! B!"

Then everything became nothing.


	7. Withering Away

Previously, Saidy was on a road trip towards Zombopolis, the zombie capital, along with traveling companions, D and Timothy Prix. Along the way, they came across a hitchhiking frost rose called Beatrice, whom was looking for a new home after supposedly not being welcomed anywhere anymore in the past.

D having let her board the car, the icy perennial went on to explain that she had a peaceful vision of the future and had attempted to convince other magical plants from her time of it—which led to Beatrice being perceived as a traitor.

More into the drive, the group came across a blue truck with its emergency lights flashing. D set out to investigate and realized there was a zombie in the woods nearby, but was surprised by a pair of chomp things. It was then that the whole group of Saidy, Tim, D, and Beatrice set out to help the lone zombie in the swamp forest nearby.

Going through a few waves of swamp creatures victoriously, Beatrice realized there was something amiss and started to become worried about a familiar energy she felt. Seeing her worry true before her eyes, she ordered everyone to leave as a huge swamp army laughed throughout the putrid forest. D, Tim, and Jim, the lonely landscaping engineer the group helped, made it to the vehicles, but Saidy paused her dash as Beatrice was downed by a strange sneak attack to her back.

Just as Saidy was about to help her up, Beatrice used magic to launch her into the back seat of D's car. In that short timeframe, the sunflower saw the worst outcome happen as a chomp thing burrowed out of the ground with the frost rose in mouth. But she also realized that she was saved because—not even a second later—another chomp thing had come out where she had just stood at.

Saidy endured a hard impact to the car door and was quickly having her vision darkened because of it, but not before seeing the one arm of the frost rose sticking out of the swamp chomper's mouth disappear into light blue sparkles. Powerless, the world became empty as she heard the DJ shout the hitchhiking frost rose's nickname that he had given her.

A loss led to a save, but with dangers at every corner, appearances can be deceiving…

* * *

Continuing the earlier nightmare of the one-sided battle, Saidy kept her eyes closed as she backed away.

Long moans of peashooters, sharp screams of sunflowers, terrible roars by chompers—it was all unbelievable to imagine all this chaos happening in the neighborhood she knew and lived in.

Within time, the shadow flower felt the door behind her and pushed it open using her body. Once inside, she let the door close by itself. Then she finally opened her eyes and looked around the daycare.

She could hear the loud explosions from rockets, the enraged battle cries from gargantuars, and the maniacal laughing from the one who ruled them all. After a minute, every little bit of noise stopped.

("Wahahahaha! What's this? You give up? Seeing as how we've dominated your weak defense, I'll accept your surrender.")

The shadow flower stood still and waited for what would happen.

("But I'll accept only if you bring to me every plant responsible for—"

In the next moment, there was an explosion and some loud moans from two gargantuars. Then there were a pair of thuds.

("Grah! That is it! Everything here will be gone when the Z Army is done!")

" _They made him upset when he was accepting their defeat. Why? Why make things worse?"_

She went to her teacher's desk and hid in the small space where a chair would normally fit into.

After the declaration, there were snapping wood noises of what might have been houses being broken into. Then there were sharp yells that were silenced when the sound of an imp exploding followed.

Saidy could now hear the slams of electric poles, the rapid-firing weapons from all-stars and soldiers, and the plant exclamations of surrender. The zombie army was getting closer to the plant daycare.

In the midst of listening to the chaos outside, the young sunflower came across a question:

" _Why was I the only one that wasn't warned? It's—I'm going to be a goner here."_

She closed her eyes and had tears swelling up.

More houses were broken into and more shouts and screams followed. By now, tremors from the many gargantuars' footsteps could be felt. Even worse, she could feel the powerful mechanical workings of the Zombot with every footstep it took.

("Grurodah! Take all the plants surrendering to base. Otherwise, vanquish indiscriminately any that oppose or are fleeing the Z Army!")

("Brainz!")

" _If they find me, I have to surrender. B-But…"_

She remembered all the wonderful times she had in the school she was in. The hugs the sun pharaoh gave her when she had bad dreams, the smiles she had when she learned something new, and the tears she had when the students made what was supposed to be a beach right outside the small school; it all made Saidy feel warm and happy to have known and shared her life with Ms. Miridine since almost two whole years ago.

After her thought over the beach, she felt an impulse at being reminded of fish. It was something important, but the more she tried to remember, the more faded the memory became amongst all her troubled worry and sweet reminiscence.

" _Beach… Fish… Ms. Miridine told me something about fish…"_

Not knowing how much time had gone by, Saidy noticed that the only noise outside was the large mechanical footsteps of the Zombot.

And it was approaching the daycare…

" _Ms. Miridine… Ms. Priscilla… Where did you both go?"_

("So, this is the daycare those two always told me about.")

" _What?"_ Saidy pondered in confusion. She then opened her eyes and peeked down from below the desk to the white door. There she saw the mastermind behind the zombie invasion of now, two years ago, and five years back, Dr. Edgar Zomboss. He had a large cranium, short stature, and the typical appearance of a scientist in a lab coat—except, he also had what was perhaps a cybernetic computer on top of where his heart was. _"He's here. And he knows about Ms. Miridine and Ms. Priscilla's daycare?"_

She only had one solution to her thought as to how he found out and it made her feel glum as she felt her world crumble.

The two plants she always loved and looked up to as not just teachers, but parents…

Miridine and Priscilla had been on the zombies' side all along.

"No…" Saidy moaned lowly in utter disappointment. However, the noise she created didn't go unnoticed. "Mm…"

"Hm?"

There was the sound of something charging up, and whatever it was released a burning energy that impacted against her rear, right root beneath a bright-blue leaf.

While most of a sunflower's body was already delicate, a hit on a root was never good news.

Strangely, the attack hadn't hurt very much. But that quickly became undone with what happened next.

The arms she was using to hide her teary face went limp and fell to her sides. Her light moaning ceased as her mouth forcefully closed shut into a frown. Then her entire body collapsed to the left as her petaled head positioned itself to where she looked up through the teacher's desk.

Save for her eyes that she could still see with, she couldn't feel a single thing along her body.

Whatever she was hit by, it must have been specially made to paralyze plants.

"Wahahaha! A powerful, yet foolish shadow flower! You try to sneak up on me, but I'm much too prepared!"

He showed up in front of her—the one person that every plant was afraid of; the one who ruled all the zombies—Dr. Zomboss. He had a huge grin full of malice and piercing eyes that were slightly reddened.

"You are now powerless! Surrender or you will be the first plant I make an example of vanquishing in this unforgiving war!"

" _I can't move anything…"_

Several seconds filled with silence passed by before the undead menace clenched his fists and gave a wicked smirk full of rage.

"So, that is your answer? Then allow me to make a mockery of your illustrious shadowy lineage in front of my army! It's only natural to do so after you desecrate the sanctity of this place with your misguided morals!"

With his oddly-cared for hands, Dr. Zomboss reached out, grabbed Saidy from her stem, and proceeded to take her outside.

Her eyes still open, Saidy looked at one crudely drawn picture on the wall of class drawings. This picture was of a blue sunflower holding the left hand of a taller gold sunflower with a few teal petals and the right hand of a floating rose in a purple cape. Contrary to most of the other drawings that had the sun in the background, a crescent-shaped moon was in the sky within this one.

Back when she first showed it to them both, Miridine and Priscilla cried. Now, with only a moment left to have a last look at it, watery tears ran down from her own eyes.

Yet, not a single sound came from the young shadow flower as she was carried outside the building where everything wonderful happened.

"Minions! Gather around! This foul plant has forfeited its life in detesting me and rejecting what happened to us!"

"Rah! Boss! Boss! Boss! Boss!" At the call, Saidy saw soldiers, engineers, all-stars, and scientists of many varieties gathered around her and the short ruler carrying her into the middle of the road next to the daycare.

She could see other zombies in the distance pushing forward through what was left of plant-occupied Suburbia. It pained her to see green foliage stuck onto the electric poles wielded by monstrous gargantuars. And it troubled her to see groups of plants being escorted to who-knows-where.

Interrupting her terrible sight-seeing, Dr. Zomboss stopped his walk and released the petaled plant healer onto the middle of the asphalt road. Zombies of every kind watched her and laughed at her state.

"Eh-hm!" the ruler of the Z Army cleared his throat as a twisted smile stayed on his face. "Any black and blue petals turned in to me will be exchanged for five brainz when we return to base!"

Depression overcame the young shadow flower. Her precious, soft petals were going to be picked.

"However, the very top one is for me. Anyone grab it and I will take back the deal for brainz. Do I make myself clear?"

"Brainz!"

"Good." The doctor nodded in approval as the shadow flower's eyes and his own locked onto each other.

"Mn…" Saidy hummed lowly, but caught the attention of Dr. Zomboss.

"Hm?" he questioned as he raised an eyebrow at her. "What? Are you ready to finally admit defeat? Then get up and kneel before me. This is your last chance to swear your allegiance to the zombie cause."

" _What?! That's not fair! I can't move!"_

Saidy struggled to make a word come out of her mouth, but all she could muster were muffled sounds.

"Mn-Mn!"

Worry filled her mind when those two sounds came out that way.

"Oh, I understand. 'Nuh-uh!' I will have to keep my word." With that said he backed off a few feet. "On my mark…"

"Brainz!" the zombies all around exclaimed in a powerful chorus.

"Get set!"

"Mn…" she hummed lowly in disappointment and closed her eyes. _"No…"_

All hope was lost. She would lose the petals that she was born with and be vanquished afterwards.

But for some reason, the final signal never came. And because of that, no zombie pounced on her to remove her precious petals.

"Miridine? What are you—?"

Someone was tackled and fell afterwards.

Saidy already regretted closing her eyes because she couldn't reopen them to look at what was going on. She couldn't see her daycare teacher one more time; she couldn't see her savior that she thought had betrayed her and all of plant kind.

"Grah?! Are you mad?!" Dr. Zomboss shouted angrily.

"Leave my moonshine alone!"

Her voice. She really was here to help her.

"Your what—?!"

But attacking Dr. Zomboss, the ruler of all the zombies, head-on while surrounded by zombies was extremely dangerous. And that's why the one who was in trouble changed.

"Boss!"

A rapid-fire burst rang out from what sounded like a sky trooper's weapon. The whole clip was used.

Saidy heard the artifact hands of her mentor impacting against the road.

"Mi-Miridine?!"

Her beloved teacher that she always wanted as her mother was downed.

* * *

A soaking wet feeling coursed throughout her body. She sensed a tense atmosphere and could hear many noises coming from every direction.

"Brainz. You okay now?"

She recognized that voice. But before she could open her eyes to see, she felt an intense pain on the back of her head that made her cringe.

"Ah—!" the shadow flower cried out. "Ngyuh."

"Sorry, brainz. Jim not sunflower so can't heal you."

That answered her question of who was with her. It was the landscaping engineer who said he was a Top Zombie.

"Ahaha," Saidy laughed amongst her pain at imagining the engineer's face surrounded by yellow petals. "Ah. Mm."

Her thoughts were broken apart in her effort to remember what happened.

"I hear a lot of weird noises. Are we…?"

"Brainz. Zombopolis, zombie capital. In park with clean water fountain."

She was in Zombopolis. She was surrounded by zombies.

Suddenly remembering, she opened her eyes. Looking down at her was the mustached zombie in a gardener's outfit.

"Where are D and Tim?"

"Brainz. It true… You friend of zombies…" the engineer said with a relieving smile. "They told Jim to take you to Zombopolis. DJ D super upset when Beatrice chomped. Him and Tim stay behind in swamp forest."

Then the memory came back. The hitchhiking frost rose that she had welcomed sharing her home with had saved her. But Beatrice was eaten immediately afterwards.

Just picturing it hurt the shadow flower that she brought up her arms and covered her eyes.

" _Huh? Did I lose my silver glasses…?"_

"Oh, yeah. Took off bow and glasses before putting you in fountain. Stuff on café table nearby."

"Thank you, Jim, The Mean Trim," Saidy appreciated with a smile despite covering her eyes.

"Brainz! You first to call Jim that! Jim will have Saidy's back from now until zombie grave."

That made the shadow flower happy as she tried to bring herself to move on from the recent tragedy.

"I would love to be your friend for until the moon stops shining."

When she uncovered her eyes, she saw the engineer with a finger on his chin and a suspicious expression on his face.

"Isn't there new moon every month where it stops shining?"

For a moment, Saidy said and did nothing as she was astonished.

But while astonished, she was also upset. And she used that mood to splash water up at his face.

"Mnyuh!"

"Brainz?!"

The landscaper was soaked from head to shoulders.

"The moon is never going to stop shining! It's going to keep shining forever!"

"Tell that to IC students and they tell you same thing Jim say."

"Nyuh!"

Another splash was delivered to the engineer.

"Grooh! It true!"

Saidy felt the pain in the back of her head dwindle down a bit with the fun she was having. She extended her arms out beneath the water surface and looked up at the zombie engineer.

"The sun gives plants energy, but as a shadow flower, it makes me really tired." Saidy began and tried to remember the rest. "My teacher told me that the stars in the night sky give me plenty of energy while the sun gives me too much to where it makes my body feel weak. She told me that it was like giving a human kid too much chocolate—they would like it at first, but then they would get tired of the flavor after a little while."

She pointed to the round white disk in the sky that had an odd shape of a zombie head plastered on it.

"That's why I love the moon. The moon doesn't do anything to me. It just shines and looks beautiful."

Jim looked up at where she was pointing at and stared at the moon for a long while alongside her.

"Moon does look beautiful when shining."

Saidy felt at home with that comment. Maybe that was one of the reasons why her two daycare teachers had been with the zombies for a long time: they were simple to understand and get along with.

" _Miridine must be a very special plant to Dr. Zomboss. He treated me like dirt, but her like the sun. If it wasn't for her showing up when she did, I think I would've been gone."_

The black and blue healer remembered about what Priscilla said hours earlier—that Miridine was in Egypt with her boyfriend looking for clues about her parents.

" _She told me my parents were vanquished and that I had been going around from home to home because nobody knew how to handle my Solar Flare beam. And that's when she figured out about the too much energy for me…"_

Being ignorant of her surroundings with her thoughts, Saidy heard the frightening screech of a large monster.

"Um… Is it safe for a plant like me to be in the zombie capital?"

The landscaper looked down at her.

"Lucky for you, Jim Top Zombie. Can ask to give tuna so good zombies won't hurt you."

She couldn't believe what she just heard. Even though she had doubted her explanation, once again, her sun pharaoh daycare teacher was right. It also further suggested that the royal sunflower had been with the zombies for some time before then.

This memory could have made the encounter with Dr. Zomboss different…

* * *

A month before the Z Army overran the neighborhood Saidy lived in…

"Ms. Miridine?"

"Yes, Saidy?" the sun pharaoh with minty, green, leaf glasses asked as she turned to the young shadow flower rooted in the clay pot before her.

Saidy would always be the last plant to arrive at the daycare, and consequently, the last one to leave.

"Is the war over?"

It looked as if Miridine was taken aback with such a question. The dark healer stared up at her teacher with eyes that were pleading for an answer.

"It's been a few months since the last battle. Did Dr. Zomboss give up?"

Like she always would, Miridine gave the young plant a smile.

"I'd like to think so," the caregiver admitted as she went and grabbed something from her desk. "But just in case it isn't, I've been meaning to give you this as a 'thank you' for telling me your lovely dream."

"A 'thank you'?"

"Ah-ha!" the Egyptian sunflower exclaimed as she pulled out a silver necklace with an odd emblem.

Upon closer look, the nocturnal sunflower made out the appearance of the white skeletal frame of a fish with a green leaf directly behind it.

"If you have this on when a battle happens, no friendly zombie is going to hurt you."

"Huh?! Where? How? Why?!" Saidy questioned with confusion as her mentor approached.

"I've heard of a few plants having easy times with zombies. When I investigated, this necklace almost always came up. They called it 'tuna'."

"Tuna? But-But how does it stop zombies, Ms. Miridine?"

Miridine laughed heartily.

"I don't know if your vocabulary is high enough to understand, but the name is short for 'The Undead Necklace of Amiability'."

"Huh," Saidy muttered lowly as she thought about what the sun pharaoh just mentioned. "Whatever amiability is, it must be very powerful to make no zombie hurt you."

In the next moment, the elegant sunflower with alternating teal and yellow petals burst out laughing in a manner the younger plant had never seen before. When she stopped her super joyous laugh, Miridine gave the rooted shadow flower in the clay pot a big hug.

"Yes, Saidy, amiability is very powerful."

* * *

" _Amiability huh…"_

Saidy gave a small smile as both sunflower and engineer looked at each other.

"Jim, how do I earn tuna?"

A laugh escaped the landscaper's mouth. When she thought about what she said, Saidy laughed whole-heartedly, too. What would a sunflower want with fish? Maybe that was why it was named the way it was.

"Humm… Get job on zombies' side, help zombies that need help, or fight plants. Thing is, plants with tuna can't go back to plants' side."

Disappointment overcame her as a frown went across her face. She already knew why this rule was probably in place for—to not risk betrayals or undercover agents.

In short, it was because of the war.

" _Wait. Ms. Miridine had tuna and she ran a daycare for the plants' side…"_

Not knowing how to ask about her teacher's exception, Saidy began tasting water in her mouth. However, she hadn't been gulping in any. But after realizing her roots were submerged beneath the one-and-a-half-foot depth of fluid in the fountain, she came to one conclusion:

She was drowning.

"Geh!" the shadow flower exclaimed as she used her arms to lift herself up.

It was a huge mistake.

"Ah!"

Being afraid of drowning, she forgot about the injury on the back of her head. A few centimeters of trying to lift herself up brought back brief agony. She let go of her body, splashed back down, and continued having her head full of petals float on the surface of the water taking away her precious time.

"Brainz. Jim help," the Top Zombie advised as he lifted the sunflower up from the water.

"Gh-No!" Saidy screamed sharply when feeling her head bend backwards. "Waaaahhhh!"

With that startling shriek, the engineer dropped the shadow flower and had her splash into the water.

Everything was numb and jumbled up as a furious intensity coursed through the stem portion behind the back of her head. That attempted help made her be in tears as she was feeling incredibly lightheaded.

"Aaow…" the dark healer mumbled as she had her eyes shut tight. "Ow…"

If she blacked out here, it'd be over. So, she moved her arms around to keep herself awake.

"Sorry. Didn't know hurt that much. Jim really very sorry." He reached out and grabbed a hold of her right hand in the water.

"It's okay," the shadow flower commented while gasping. "But I need to get out of the water or else I'll drown."

"Brainz? You sure?"

"Yeah," Saidy mouthed with sadness.

She learned the hard way the consequence of too much water. One pinto bean plant she tried to grow under Ms. Miridine's guidance died on her because of it.

"And I don't know why, but it feels like I'll be vanquished if my head moves a lot."

When she reopened her eyes, Jim appeared stupefied at what she just said. Like the water around her, an awful question seeped into her:

" _Can I not cheer anymore?"_

With a shaky smile she could barely hold, Saidy stared up at her zombie friend with despair.

"I'm trapped, but I'm going to try getting up again. Can you make sure my head doesn't move a lot, Jim?"

Jim nodded and stepped into the water fountain. He placed one hand on the green stem behind her head and had the other hold what would appear to be her chin just above her lowest petal.

Feeling the mysterious hold on her stem and the secure grip in front, Saidy closed her eyes in preparation for the worst. With all the strength she could muster in her lower body, the dark sunflower lifted herself up. Pain immediately clouded her mind, but because of Jim's hold, it wasn't as much as when he tried lifting her up.

"Hih!" A grunt left her mouth as she tried to keep going. She panted when she finally felt her two rear roots be on the ground appropriately, but also knew that she was about to swing forward. "Gih!"

To her relief, the landscaper kept his hold from beginning to end. He made sure that her head didn't swing forward or backward violently in her effort to get up.

All four of her roots were now touching the cement floor of the water fountain. Saidy was standing up once again, but the taste of water got more and more vivid.

She was still drowning.

Quickly opening her eyes to look, she saw that the fountain had a two-and-a-half-foot tall cement circle built around. Jumping was not an option for her with the injury behind her; it would be her demise.

She didn't know what to do and she started feeling drops of water ooze out of her mouth.

"Please get me out of the water, Jim!"

"Brainz! Don't move!"

With a double-handed hold on the stem area immediately above the bright blue leaves covering her roots, Jim hoisted Saidy up out of the water and onto the fountain's cement ring around the water. On guard though, she felt her head move forward on its own and made her body resist from following through. Jim then hopped over the ring, grabbed onto the sunflower's green stem again, brought her to the outside of the fountain, and slowly set her down onto the dirt ground. Once again, Saidy had to make herself resist her head moving forward.

Finally, drowning wasn't a worry anymore.

"Jim," she nearly coughed out when feeling watery drops from her mouth land on her leaves. "Can you see what's wrong with the back of my sunflower head?"

Sure enough, the landscaper nodded and looked behind her.

"Brainz?"

She said to look, but she felt his hand rest against her stem. It was an odd sensation. There was a part she could feel, an empty void, and the next part she could feel. This peculiar emptiness was right between the two appendages for the two large leaves behind her and the two appendages for her arms.

"Green thing pushed in where diamond shape hole is. Green part around light. Rest of body darker."

That was probably why she was knocked out earlier. Even though Beatrice had saved her in sending Saidy's body flying away fast, the impact against the edge of D's rear left car door dented her stem.

And if Jim hadn't known until recently, he might have accidentally made it worse in carrying her without proper care. The last she remembered was being in D's car. At the very least, she had to have been carried from his car to Jim's blue truck, had to have endured the remaining one hour trip full of turns and bouncing, and had to have been carried from the blue truck to the fountain.

Imagining all of that made Saidy want to faint. But she resisted.

" _Uh… I can't stand the thought of my head falling off…"_

Her attention was caught by her pondering.

" _Stand? Tomato stand!"_

With a solution in mind, she did her best to resist cheering in excitement. It would be quite a unique, unexpected way to be vanquished otherwise.

"Jim, do you know of any stores around here that sell plungers?"

"Sure, brainz. 'The General's Store' right there. But why need…?" And then a look of realization came on his face. "Oh…"

" _A broomstick could work if it's strong enough, but those are pretty long. I'd prefer whatever will be on my back to be short."_

"Sunflower need to go to the bathroom."

Saidy was surprised earlier over his smart remark over the moon not shining. Now, she was surprised over his not-so-smart remark over her needing to go to the bathroom.

Before she could get carried away with trying to push him though, she gave a small sigh.

"If I eat something through my mouth that's not fertilizer, I would need to go. But I haven't eaten anything in a long time. Plants can survive just fine by rooting in spots with soil, water, and sunshine."

"Really, brainz? Come, store close."

He sounded interested and curious. In a strange way, that made her happy. There were probably many things she assumed about zombies just as zombies could have assumed many things about plants.

" _If that's the case, Ms. Priscilla must have a lot fun teaching things to zombies. I wonder if that's why she wants me to be her substitute?"_

Both walked at the pace of a snail until they made it to the store's entrance. Since it was only twenty feet away, "better to be safe than sorry" was what Saidy had on her mind.

The glass door propped open when Jim was near.

"Oh, hey, brainz, what shadow flower's name again? Jim heard it a little, but forgot after long drive…"

"Saidy," the shadow flower said aloud. He was honest enough to admit he forgot so she smiled. "Saidy Lenova, unofficial plant cheer flower, and hopefully zombie one, too?"

She giggled at the end of her introduction and saw him have a puzzling look on his face.

"Zombie cheer flower Saidy Letnova…"

Saidy had a mixed expression on her face as she turned her whole body to the store in front. It was the first time she mentioned her last name to a zombie and it was already pronounced wrong.

" _I wonder if Ed would have a hard time saying my last name…"_

"Brainz! Almost forgot about stuff! Be right back!" Jim hollered as he ran to a plastic white table with a few items on top.

"Okay!" she agreed. _"Come to think of it, Ed wanted me to cheer for his team at Undeadly Resurrection. Maybe that'll count as helping zombies?"_

Despite being in front of the store, the glass door closed in her face when the landscaper left. That let Saidy know that it was obviously only activated by the presence of zombies.

" _I am in Zombopolis, aren't I?"_ she sighed.

Jim approached and looked like he carried her belongings with care. Laughter left her mouth as she raised an arm to touch his.

"Thanks, Jim. I can't promise this will be the last thing I ask for, but can you help me with my stuff? I'll tell my plant friends at home a story about how Top Zombie Jim, the Mean Trim, slayed two hundred chomp things all by himself."

"Grooh! Not anyone ever do that for Jim!"

She would do it; she would come up with a sweet story for the zombie who saved her and kept on helping her.

Jim carefully replaced the silver frames back on her face and put the huge bow with a clip back on her topmost petal. He had such wonderful precision that she didn't need to complain over adjusting either.

Then came the light blue purse with a smiling sunflower's face on it. The silver beaded chain was reconnected at the top of the large leaf on the right behind her stem.

With her belongings reequipped, Saidy looked at Jim who backed off some. She then slowly threw arms at different angles and gave a warm smile.

"Ta-da"

This was by far one of her most quiet cheers. But with the awful injury on the back of her stem, a lot of her movement was dulled if not out of the question already.

"Brainz. That great. Wish had camera for memory 'cause no one ever cheered for Jim before."

Even though it was a little gesture, it was still appreciated.

"Hmhm. I'd be more than happy to do it again when I get better."

Both zombie and plant went into the store when the glass door opened with Jim's close presence. Inside were metal baskets filled to the brim with yellow pellet clips, golf balls, modified bull horns, and many other goodies of the like.

On the walls were tacky pictures of a soldier firing his assault blaster, an all-star pointing his football cannon, a pile of plants lying beneath an obviously photo-shopped general supremo saluting, and much more.

To the right from where they just entered was a vending machine filled with collectible sticker packs. And to the left of that was a claw machine containing fresh brains at a dollar each attempt.

"Welcome! To 'The General's Store,' brainz!"

Lastly, there was the brown-bearded soldier variant sitting on a bar stool behind the filled bookshelf of a counter—general supremo. He had a deep voice like a narrator from movie commercials.

"Grooh! Good brainz!" Jim greeted excitedly with a nod.

"Haha! Hi!" Saidy greeted and waved happily. "Do you sell plungers and duct tape?"

"Yes, ma'am! Here."

The scruffy soldier went to the metal basket full of wooden sticks, grabbed one, grabbed a black rubber base in a box nearby, and attached the two pieces together through hard twisting. Then, he went to a box with a yellow duck symbol on the side and pulled out what looked like a rubber duck with a roll of gray tape beneath its body.

"Power plunger and duck duct tape, brainz!" the general announced as he set the two items on the magazine-filled bookshelf.

"Hmhm. Cool," Saidy laughed at seeing the unique tape dispenser—a rubber duck with sunglasses would make her smile any day there would be something broken. She approached the cashier alone as Jim was distracted by the "Grabba Brain" machine. "How much will it be?"

"Power plunger five bucks. Duck duct tape five bucks. Total ten bucks. Anything else, ma'am?"

Saidy had only been in the store for merely three minutes and she already loved it. Aside from the arts and crafts store where she helped at, almost every plant store had a similar selection of items. But that could aslo be because she never wanted to travel far from home.

As she was about to respond, her eyes came across the small plastic caddy on the countertop holding five glossy rectangles. On one of the rectangles was a brain with electrifying skeletal wings.

" _The Brain Bats?"_

Noticing her distraction, the general gave a smirk.

"Which one you like? I'll give one at five bucks for being first plant customer."

"These are very cool. I wish there were sunflower ones, but if I had to choose…" Naturally, she pointed to the one that had caught her attention. "I'd like to have this one."

She smiled as the brown-bearded zombie grabbed the shiny rectangle.

" _Ed gave me a pretty bow. I'm sure he'll like this bookmark."_

"Eh? Never woulda guessed sunflower be fan, but world be small, brainz. Total fifteen bucks. Anything else look good?"

"Everything looks good," Saidy admitted with a smile before turning to her partner by the claw machine. "Hey, Jim, do you…"

When she looked, she saw Jim's face plastered against the hard, plastic window of the machine. Then she looked at the inside of the machine and saw a vibrant pink brain balanced on a corner of the prize hole. It was remarkably unbelievable.

"That not fair! Was so close! Only three more dollars left!"

" _Um… What if he needed to refill his truck with gas?"_ Saidy thought for a moment before turning back around to see the general awing at her. "Is everything okay?"

"Said 'everything looks good.' Sunflower coming back, right?"

She loved the store already. There was probably not a single thing she could use as a plant, but it had a very welcoming atmosphere.

"Yep! 'The General's Store' is already one of my favorite stores, even if I'm a plant." Saidy unbuckled the silver chain of the light blue purse around her stem and placed it on the counter.

" _!"_

The silver tiara with the heart-shaped sapphire gem on top was hanging onto her purse. Sadness returned at remembering what happened.

"Everything okay?" This time he asked that to her.

"Yeah."

Brushing aside the tiara onto the counter gently, Saidy eased her right arm into her purse until the magnetic seal was split.

Normally, she would easily reach into the purse hanging around her stem, but with the injury constantly forcing her petaled head to be in check, a simple task was made into a hard trial.

"Don't be sad. Not much in Zombopolis for sunflower or any plant, but 5Gs can change that here."

If she would ever return to the city, having plant supplies would be wonderful. And if she ever decided to truly stay on this side…

"Five jees?" the shadow flower questioned as she continued rummaging through her purse. "What's that?"

"5Gs name. Short for General Get Grit Gritty Garrity."

Saidy was stunned at that name. It was long, but he had no problem pronouncing it.

"Do you like it when others call you 5Gs?" she asked with a small smile and pulled out a green bundle of paper held together by a blue rubber band.

"Yes, ma'am. Five 5Gs' lucky number because that what always aim for."

That was when she noticed it all: the black helmet on his head with five gold stars, the five-dollar prices, and the display of five bookmarks.

"Hmhm. Five is a great number to like and aim for," the sunflower agreed and tediously slipped out a green bill from the wad of cash. "My name is Saidy Lenova and I'm on a friendly visit here to find a Dance ZPG for a zombie friend."

"Saidy Lenova?" She blinked several times in disbelief, but nodded with a huge smile on her face. "Good brainz. Dance ZPG can be found within ZomVilla. Further up on Brainz Street where disco floor at. Can't miss."

She had no idea where she was or where what he was mentioning was, but considering the confidence he had, the store must have been close by. 5Gs grabbed the green bill with a gargantuar's portrait in the middle and ran the transaction on the cash register nearby.

"Change five bucks," he announced and gave the shadow healer quite an awfully wrinkled green bill. "Don't give mean look! 5Gs hates getting five bucks looking like this!"

Being careful not to burst outright, Saidy brought her right arm up and laughed. Considering his favorite number, she could easily imagine 5Gs giving someone else the same look she just gave him.

"Saidy think the same way as 5Gs. Get along just fine," the general commented as he went around the counter and approached the landscaper who had his face glued to the claw machine's plastic screen. "Brainz! Don't know how got it there, but use other brain to knock it down. Claw too weak to pull or push brain when stuck like that."

"What?! That not fair!" Jim hollered out again in disappointment.

Saidy giggled before turning back around to face her belongings on the bookshelf counter. She eased the wad of cash into her purse holding her golden pom-poms, slipped the sad state of a five-dollar bill within it, and slapped shut her bag with a snap of the magnetic seal.

She gave a deep breath when she looked at the plunger and yellow rubber duck with duct tape below it.

"Jim?"

"Yes?"

Just like that, he was ready.

"Can you please tape this plunger to the back of my stem? I think four—"

"Eh?" 5Gs questioned abruptly.

"Five. Five wraps should do it."

There was some silence before she felt a hand touch her right arm. The sunflower turned and looked at the general who appeared confused.

"I'm trying to make my stem stay still so my head won't fall off—"

Before she could go on, 5Gs put his other hand over her mouth.

"Stupid!" the general yelled and made the plant's eyes blink multiple times as a sad expression made its way back. "Watch what power plunger do."

He grabbed the plunger from the countertop and held it like a staff. Then, the brown-bearded soldier shook it up and down three times.

A "whir" sound came from the plunger as it shook up and down violently with life. The shaking lasted around fifteen seconds and 5Gs managed to hold onto it for the entire brunt of it.

That would have been a torturous vanquish to her. But just when she thought it was over…

"And if that don't vanquish Saidy, this would!"

5Gs lunged the plunger through the open glass door. Saidy watched in horror as the bathroom tool flew to a tiny pine tree and exploded into a powerful white ball that unleashed countless splinters.

The plunger had detonated when it touched a plant.

Saidy gulped at an image of black and blue petals and leaves flying in the air.

"Wow, brainz! When Jim bring money, want buy all power plungers!"

5Gs turned back to face her and crossed his arms.

"Thought sunflower buying plunger as gift for zombie engineer here. Most stuff meant to vanquish plants."

She was back to where she started: Her sunflower head would fall off if it tilted too much forward or backwards.

Her stem was already aching just from trying to hold herself up with so much care. If she didn't find a solution soon, she would be in trouble trying to sleep.

"Next time, say this: 5Gs, Saidy hurt. Help."

The general walked behind the counter and appeared to have walked through the large poster that had the photoshopped general supremo on the pile of plants.

A hologram. If he hadn't walked through it, she never would have known.

When he returned, 5Gs was carrying a small vial of yellow liquid in his left hand and three mint leaves in his right.

"Don't know if Saidy know Sirius Malchaemical, but zombie scientist that found way to heal plants."

Saidy stood silent. She felt 5Gs place the three mint leaves in the diamond-shaped empty space of an injury on the back of her stem.

Pain signals flared up as she felt her roots stretch out involuntarily.

" _A zombie found out a way to heal plants?"_

"Hey, Jim, was it? Come hold sunflower," he ordered with seriousness.

"Yes, brainz," the landscaper agreed.

The shadow flower now felt the top and bottom portion around her injury held tightly.

"This called 'Miracle Serum' in honor of first plant healed and saved. Will make Saidy tired, but will make body feel great again when done," he explained to her briefly.

"Saidy trust 5Gs?"

To have asked that after stopping her from going through with her plunger stand idea, advising her that plant supplies would be in stock just for her, welcoming her with utmost kindness…

"Of course, I trust you, 5Gs," Saidy responded whole-heartedly before feeling the sticky yellow fluid. "Hih! I trust you, and every single zombie and plant I've met..."

An extreme tiredness settled in her body along with a cool, refreshing feeling. She closed her eyes and let go of her body.

"Don't do that. General Get Grit Gritty Garrity seen zombies vanquish plants with no thought…"

The pain was gone. All that remained was the cool, refreshing feeling in the darkness of her mind.

"And stupid plants trying to vanquish zombies without thought started the second war that hasn't ended…"

" _Huh? What did the zombies lose that made the war happen?"_

* * *

Twenty, forty, sixty minutes—Saidy had no idea how much time had flown by, but her tranquil, dark peace amongst the minty cool feeling was interrupted.

Multiple alarms were going off throughout the city.

"Grooh! Shingles! Plant invasion! This very, very bad!"

"Shut up! 5Gs knows! If zombies find Saidy in Zombopolis..."

There was the sound of a glass door being forced open.

"Jim?! What are you doing here?! Thought you were dealing with swamp chompers?!"

This voice was way different to other zombies Saidy had come across. In fact, it sounded ladylike and almost fully comprehensible.

"The Mean Trim told ten chompers in swamp. Vanquished more than hundred before left swamp."

"Stupid intel was way wrong, then. Some black rose is making swamp things and weeds grow quick. There are thousands coming this way! Boss wants everyone out there now!"

Saidy opened her eyes sharply when the undead female said "boss."

It was her. This zombie was the one that unleashed her whole ammo clip onto her daycare teacher.

"Brainz! But—!"

"Now! Get going!" There was the sound of the landscaper scampering away. "General, know you retired, but…"

A heavy grunt came from the brown-bearded soldier.

"Fine. Whatever plant is behind this," 5Gs announced and slammed his hand on the bookshelf countertop that Saidy noticed she was hiding behind. "They better run before the real trouble come and make new pile of green with them! And if plant attack then, plant get vanquished!"

Saidy understood; she was to run and not attack.

"Thank you, General," the female zombie appreciated with a stomp.

"Yes, ma'am. Now, battle await!" 5Gs exclaimed as he dashed to the outside.

Just when she thought she was safe, she wasn't.

"Sorry, General. This Top Zombie was sent to look for plant spies and after seeing this sunflower purse on the counter with a rose tiara by it…"

Saidy got up immediately and ran through the large poster that was a hologram.

"You! Stop!"

However long it had been, the shadow flower felt completely healed; she could move normally again without worrying about her head tilting.

" _This is bad! That's the same zombie that shot Miridine!"_

She closed a door behind her and looked at the frightening stairway to her right. Many a sunflower would have taken it a step at a time and slower to be safe. She hopped at every two steps for a set of ten in under five seconds. Setting a new record for sunflower stair-climbing, Saidy was thankful for her athletic practice as a cheer flower.

The door below burst open and up came running the sky trooper that Saidy had yet to see.

By now, she ran into a big open area with furniture, clothes, and military memorabilia—5Gs' home.

A split-second glance at a digital clock with red numbers told her that it was 4:12 am. Sunrise was approaching.

" _Mh! No other rooms!"_

Her mind raced as her eyes focused on the one open window. She dashed to it as she heard the girl zombie make it to the second floor.

In a quick leap, Saidy felt the comforting grasp of the outdoor air that let go when she landed on her roots a second later. All around her were shadows of buildings piercing into the sky and stretching for miles.

She was lost. She was alone. And she was being chased by a Top Zombie.

The cheer flower ran, her eyes looking for a glimmer of hope among the shining stars.

" _Where do I go from here?"_


End file.
